Okay, I’m going to dedicate a series of posts on celebrating for the holidays during a recession. Some of you finance folks out there might think its over, but I beg to differ.
What I’m going to do is to make holiday gifts for people! The thing about homemade holiday gifts is that it often looks better in the picture than how it really comes out. Also your prada-loving friend or your snooty mother-in-law might just think you’re being a cheap ass. Now you have an excuse, however. We’re in a recession! What could be better?
So for my first gift idea, I present you with homemade holiday cookies. I plan to do an assortment and put them in a nice tin wrapped with bows. This is my experimental batch of the first variety of cookie: “The Holiday Sugar Cookie with Icing.” This is sugary stuff, let me tell you. So reserve them for gifting to family with kids or men with tastebuds of 7 year-olds (they exist, believe me).
Recipe for Sugar Cookie Base (adapted from REAL SIMPLE):
2.5 c flour
0.25 tsp salt
0.25 tsp baking soda
1 c butter
0.5 c sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
Combine flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.
In a mixer, cream butter and sugar. (My mixer has a certain setting for creaming, and it is about medium speed). Okay it has taken me a while to figure out how to do this because it is not simply dumping butter and sugar and expecting a miracle to happen in the mixer. It has to mix until it becomes fluffy and creamy. To do this, you MUST make sure that the butter is at room temperature. Otherwise you get clumps of butter and sugar. And don’t try to short-cut by microwaving either; you don’t want the butter to melt or it’ll just look like a liquidy-goo with the sugar. (Not that it has ever happened to me, of course.)
Add the egg while the mixer is still going for another 2 minutes or so. It should still be fluffy. Add in the vanilla as well.
Finally, turn your mixer on low. Slowly add the flour mixture from the beginning. That means, add about a quarter of the mixture each time until it is fully incorporated. (That’s another term you will see a lot, which means that if you can spot the contents separately, you are not doing it correctly.) Keep mixing until all the flour is used up and the dough becomes rather stiff.
Roll up the dough into a disk and wrap it up. Then refrigerate for at least an hour so that it becomes a little more firm.
After an hour or so, remove from the fridge and roll out the dough on a floured surface with a rolling pin. Roll the dough out to desired thickness; it will not rise too much in the oven. Just keep in mind that the thinner the cookie, the less time it will require in the oven.
Use cookie cutters to cut out holiday shapes (or a knife if you have more artistic ability) from the dough. Toss them onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (Yes parchment paper is the best stuff for cookies. Wax paper will leave you with a greasy burning mess.)
Bake in oven for about 12-15 minutes. It really depends on your oven. So watch it like a hawk for the first time. As soon as it starts to turn golden brown, turn it off. Then remove from the oven and cool.
Now for the naughty part…the icing.
Sugar Cookie Colored Icing
1 c of confectioner’s sugar
1 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
food coloring
Mix ingredients together until a creamy thick paste forms. Divide the icing into separate bowls. Add a drop of food color to each bowl, each of a different color. Stir until it is even. Spread a thin layer of icing on top of each cookie after it cools. Wait about 15 minutes until they are completely dry.