Gourmet Cookie Bouquets Recipe Blog

When it comes to baking and decorating sugar cookies for Christmas in my family, we do it assembly line style.  Each person in the family is in charge of a certain aspect of the baking and decorating process. That way we can make A LOT of cookies in a short amount of time.  My favorite job is decorating and each decorator is tasked with one shape so that you can get creative and try all kinds of fun decorations.  I personally like doing the Christmas trees, but my sister likes during the star and holiday ornament shapes.  We actually use a couple different recipes for sugar cookies depending on whether we want crisp cookies that are decorated with colored sugars or egg washes (shared in this post) or thicker more chewy cookies that can hold up to iced decorations.  If you are planning to make thousands of cookies like we do, I would recommend going with the easy-to-decorate cookies that are decorated with small candies and colored sugars.  Icing takes too much time when you are doing that many cookies.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond flavoring
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda

Using a large stand mixer or glass bowl, cream the sugar and butter together. Add egg, vanilla and almond flavoring; mixing thoroughly. Sift flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda together and stir in to the wet ingredients. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours. Prior to removing the dough from the refrigerator, preheat oven to 375°F. Divide dough in half and roll out on lightly floured pastry board. Roll thin (1/4" to 3/8" thick), but thick enough to cut with a holiday shaped cookie cutter. Dip cutter in flour before each cutting. Use care so that you can cut as many cookies from each rolling as possible. Use a spatula to move cookies from pastry board to a lightly greased cookie sheet. Remaining dough can be rolled again to make more cookies.  Add cookie decorations such as red hot candies, jimmies, colored sugars, confetti candy, M&M's, and nuts. Bake in 375° F oven for 7 to 8 minutes or until delicately golden. Remove from baking sheet and cool on a rack.  Store cookies in an airtight container.

My Tips - These sugar cookies are light and crisp in texture so I recommend decorating them with colored sugars and confetti candies rather than a heavy icing.  I found this EXCELLENT video with fun tips and ideas for decorating holiday Christmas cookies with candies, colored sugars, gourmet nuts and more.

Find more Christmas cookie recipes!