I can’t wait for Christmas! By then, hopefully, all the cleaning and painting and organizing will be done, and the house will look nice. Although we haven’t really bothered the past few years, this year I want to decorate and go all out for what will most likely be our last year in this house. We never really made Christmas cookies as a family when I was growing up. Most of my cookies either came as a box mix or as pre-packaged cookie dough. I tried making sugar cookies using a recipe off a bag of sugar but all my careful cookie cutter shapes came out as shapeless blobs (although the cookies tasted good!). So I hopped on Google to find an appropriate recipe to use with cookie cutters. And I settled on two.
I’ve used RecipeTin Eats blog several times to source some of the base recipes for mom’s Japanese foods. So I was sure this sugar cookie recipe would be excellent. It’s a recipe that promises no spreading, no need to refrigerate, and a flavor that doesn’t require icing. Sounds perfect! I also came across this recipe from the Preppy Kitchen. It promises sharp edges and no spreading also. I decided to make half portions of each recipe and see which I liked best. To me, the RecipeTin version tasted the best. It had a more buttery richer flavor while the Preppy Kitchen recipe was to me, kind of bland. But in terms of holding the shape with the cookie cutter – Preppy Kitchen was the clear winner. Sharp straight edges on the cookies with no rising or puffiness to distort the shape of the cookie. The RecipeTin cookie did a good job holding it’s shape but there was a bit of a rise in the cookie as it baked.
At the core both recipes are the same. A cup of butter, a cup of sugar – but RecipeTin uses baking powder and a touch more vanilla while Preppy Kitchen omits the baking powder and adds corn starch. And Preppy Kitchen uses a lot more flour which I think dilutes the flavor of the butter/sugar/vanilla.
I decided to try to merge the two recipes to see if I could preserve the flavor of RecipeTin while keeping the excellent cookie cutter shaping of Preppy Kitchen. I’m happy with the way it turned out and this is the recipe I’ll be using in December.
Christmas Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
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Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper
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Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl (flour, corn starch, salt) and set aside.
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In a second large bowl mix softened butter with sugar until well blended (a hand mixer makes it quick)
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Beat in egg and vanilla extract
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Add dry ingredients and blend until flour mixture is fully incorporated. (It will be crumbly but easily mushed together into a ball)
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Lightly flour a work surface to begin rolling the dough. Not much flour is needed as the dough is easy to work with. I usually work with about a quarter of the dough from the bowl, roll it into a ball, and then roll it flat with a rolling pin.
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Cut out the shapes and line them on the cookie sheet.
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Bake about 10-12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie cutouts. The cooked dough will be very white and appear uncooked. I prefer the taste when there is a little brown around the edges. (Next time I may turn up the heat a bit in order to get more browning)
Note
Just a note on decorating - I did try icing a few with a powdered sugar/butter/milk/vanilla frosting but I felt they tasted best dunked in plain powdered sugar. That's how I plan to make them when I finally do get to do my Christmas baking. It's still August so it's early yet, but I'm glad I have my Christmas cookie recipe all squared away!
