Recipes
sugar cookies
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ¾ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Green food coloring*
*We used the festive twist of adding green food coloring (as many drops as needed to achieve desired green) and used a Christmas tree cookie cutter.
Directions
Mix all ingredients together. Put dough in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat over to 375 degrees.
Roll out cookies, use cookie cutters and place a little bit apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden/hard. Let sit on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes then remove and let cool.
peppermint flavored sugar cookies
Peppermint Flavored Sugar Cookies
Adapt the basic sugar cookie recipe above by adding 1 teaspoon of Peppermint Extract. Also, to make the cookies even more festive, add red food coloring (as many drops as need to achieve desired color) and use a candy cane cookie cutter.
Icing (homemade is so much better than store bought stuff-cheaper and you know all of the ingredients!)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons milk
Adjust as desired-add more or less milk for desired thickness and food coloring
gingerbread cookies
Gingerbread Cookies
credit to Taste of Home’s December 2013 magazine for the recipe
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons butter, softened
- ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel (I just used lemon juice and worked great)
- 3 cups flour
- 3 tablespoons ground ginger
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
Directions
Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in molasses, egg, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix in flour, ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and cloves. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion to ¼ inch thick or so and cut into gingerbread men shapes using cookie cutter. Place a little apart on a cookie sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes or until edges are firm. Remove, cool and decorate as desired.
Memories
My husband and I decided we wanted to host a Christmas party and share this wonderful season with our friends. So after brainstorming a bit, we decided to have a casual Christmas party with a photo booth (all sorts of great Christmas props in front of wrapping paper on the wall!) and Christmas cookie decorating! I thoroughly enjoyed the party and baking all of the cookies with my dear friend two weekends prior to the party. It was so nice to enjoy the conversation and time with her-especially since this was her last month in the city. We made cutout cookies out of different types of cookies and even had a batch of spritz cookies we burnt to a crisp (oops!) and enjoyed the time together. Because my husband and I were out of town the weekend before our party for my brother’s college graduation (yay! Congrats!) I froze the dozens of cookies and pulled them out the morning of our Christmas party. I learned the freezer trick from my grandmother who makes AMAZING Christmas cookies and even has a whole freezer dedicated to them, so that she can make them months in advance and they’ll still be fresh once pulled out of the freezer.
I really enjoyed setting up some of our pretty serving trays and dessert stands filled with the homemade cookies and decorating our house for our Christmas party! I also made two types of punch and had hot chocolate with marshmallows. The party was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends we rarely see and meet some of my husband’s friends from work. I also enjoyed seeing our friends from different circles meet each other. I felt so thankful for all of the wonderful people God has put in our lives. We hope to make our party an annual tradition!
We had a cookie-decorating contest and the winners got a small prize. It was so fun to see everyone’s creativity. Below are some of the decorated cookies!
cookie decorating and my hubby!
Recipes and Memories 