Vanilla Snowflakes

 

This is a pretty cut-out cookie that you can decorate in a snowflake pattern very easily. You can use any cookie cutter and let your creative side come out to play! 

Makes about 3.5 Dozen cookies - it depends what size you cut them. 

Ingredients:

3/4 c. Butter

3/4 c. Sugar

1 egg

1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract

2 c. Flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar (See P.S.)

P.S. If you don't have Cream of Tartar, you can use 1.5 teaspoons of Baking Powder in lieu of the baking soda & Cream of Tartar

Royal Icing to decorate  (See link below)

https://whats4dinnerbymarie.blogspot.com/2020/12/royal-icing.html

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*

Cream softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar. Mix well. Add flour slowly and continue to mix until homogenized. 

The dough will be soft, so refrigerate for an hour before trying to roll it out. After an hour, I rolled out 1/2 of the dough at a time, leaving the other half in the fridge to stay cold. You can gather scraps and re-roll, but give them a little time back in the fridge to stiffen up. 

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness, on a well floured surface.  Dip your cookie cutter into flour before cutting the dough. Place cookies on parchment lined cookie sheet with an inch between. Allow cookies to rest in the fridge for 15 or so before baking. Bake 10-12 minutes, until edges start to brown. 

Cool completely before storing or decorating. 

I started rolling out on parchment, 

but working directly on the counter worked better. 

Just use enough flour. 

The cut out cookies need to rest in the fridge for a time before baking. I stacked them in there on sheets of parchment that I just slid onto the cookie sheet before popping into the oven. 

After baking, I slid the parchment off the cookie sheet and onto the counter to cool. That way you don't have to handle soft cookies before they cool and you can immediately use the cookie sheet again. 

The next day, I decorated with Royal Icing sprinkled with sugar, as well as some colorful sprinkles I have. It was a nice variety of color and textures. 

Sparkly Sanding Sugar

Sparkling sugar and nonpareils.

I had leftover Royal Icing, so I made some little colorful candies to add to the cookie plates I give away. I don't like to waste anything. 

The round button candies were much easier to lift from the parchment than the thin designs. I really liked the snowflakes, though. 

They turned out really cute!

Ready to store before plating out for friends and neighbors. 

The candy buttons.

The thicker designs worked out well. 

The thin ones broke when I tried to lift them off the paper. 

Peanut Santa Cookies

14th cookie in my Christmas Cookie Series.

Just silly and cute. I use them more for decoration than as an actual Christmas Cookie.

12 oz. white chocolate for dipping

1 16oz. package of Nutter Butter cookies

Red sugar

white chocolate chips

miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

red hot candies

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Directions:

Dip cookies into white chocolate and then into red sugar to create the hat. Allow to harden. Slipping the tray into the fridge really speeds things up. Then dip the other side into white chocolate to create the beard. Allow to harden. Then decorate as the picture shows.

The original recipe calls for dipping each little candy piece into the melted white chocolate and then attaching. I find it MUCH easier and faster to put a dot of royal icing and then putting candies on. I've shown both here, you choose whichever works better for you.

White chocolate chip is Santa's hat puff.

Two miniature chocolate chips as eyes.

One red hot as his mouth.

I even played this time at making snowmen. That was fun. I just dipped far enough on both sides that it covered the cookie completely. Let the kids help. You never know what they'll come up with!

Have fun! :D

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Step By Step:

Gather supplies...

Dip one end into the melted white chocolate. Feel free to scrape some off the bottom. What's on top and sides will ooze down anyways. If you leave too much on, it puddles on the paper and doesn't look as nicely shaped. I just scrape the bottom across the plastic chopstick I'm using as a stir, as I pull it up out of the chocolate.

After the first dip into the chocolate, it goes into the red sugar. Now, I won't say dip. If you shove the wet chocolate into the sugar, the sugar pushes the chocolate up. I lay the wet cookie tip into the sugar and then pull sugar up over the cookie with the edge of a spoon. Then shake it off a tad and back onto the paper.

After a short stint in the fridge to chill the melted chocolate, I dip the other side. This is the beard side of Santa.

Once the tray is done, back into the fridge for 5 minutes.

Here is where I try dripping little amounts of melted chocolate off the coffee stir onto Santa's face for eyes and mouth. Messy and uncontrollable, for the most part. And time consuming.

Now put on face...

White chip for Santa's hat puff....

Here's MY preferred method. Royal icing in a pastry bag. Boink, boink, boink. Fast, easy, much more direct. Right where I want them, a precise amount.

Jonathan helping to attach chips and red hots. Things are more fun and go faster with an extra set of hands. 

Aren't those cute and silly? LOL!