Since Christmas is
only about a week and a half away, (eeek!) I thought I’d share with you all
some of my family’s traditions and ways of celebrating the holiday. One of the most special ways of celebrating
the holiday includes baking Christmas cookies.
When I was younger,
I used to love the preparation of Christmas cookies almost as much as Christmas
itself. It was a day which my parents,
grandparents, brother, and I spend mixing dough, rolling it, cutting it out in
festive shapes, and baking it to perfection.
I find it impossible not to cherish the memories created each year. Each year, we go to the extreme, baking
approx. 3-4 batches of 5 different kinds of cookies: sugar, gingerbread,
angenette, crinkle, and the ever popular chocolate spice cookies. However, in our defense, we do give plenty of
our cookies away in gift baskets to family and friends.
My family’s sugar
cookie recipe comes from a side of a Domino’s powdered sugar box dating back to
who-knows-when. A classic Christmas
cookie, I have yet to find a sugar cookie that compares with the one that my
family makes. They are not flakey as
some cookies are, yet they are not hard as others can be. They are the perfect combination of soft and
firm, and have the perfect balance of sugar and flour, giving it the perfect
sweet taste. Combined with the sugar
crystals that used on top of the cookies for decoration, the create the perfect
cookie.
One of my favorite
things about baking sugar cookies is eating the cookie dough. When I was younger, this was something that
my parents introduced me to, and allowed me to do in small amounts. Now that I
am older, each year I still look forward to that first taste of dough that hits
my tongue. Out of all the dough’s that
we make, the sugar cookie dough tastes the best, perhaps due to its’
simplicity. I look forward to the day
when I have the opportunity to introduce the taste of this dough to my own
daughter.
When my family
rolls out the cookies, typically the manual labor falls upon my father and
me. We are the ones left to roll out the
dough countless times until it reaches the perfect thickness, and gently press
our enormous cookie cutter collection into the dough in order to create the
cookies. Then, we sprinkle red and/or
green sugar crystals over the cookies and send them to my mother, who typically
is in charge of the oven. When the
cookies come out of the oven, they look pristine. And if they don’t, it’s o.k. any and all burnt cookies officially become
property of my grandfather, or Poppy, as we kids call him, and he quietly sits
on the couch and munches away while watching FOX news. This system, perfected over decades, has been
in place for ‘cookie weekend’ and has proved to be quite successful. The players in the game have changed over the
years as grandparents become unable to do the physical work, and new
generations, such as myself, entered the game, eager and ready to play. But the game has always remained the same.
Sugar Cookies
1 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups Dominos
confectionary 10x powdered sugar
1tsp vanilla
1cup butter
softened
1 egg
Domino granulated
sugar for sprinkling or sugar crystals of choice
1. In large bowl, stir flour, baking powder, salt,
and sugar together
2. Add butter, vanilla, and egg
3. Mix thoroughly until well blended
4. Shape into 4 balls and chill 2 hours
5. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 3/4in
thickness
6. Cut using various desired cookie cutters
7. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet
8. Sprinkle with granulated sugar or sugar crystals
as desired
9. Bake 8 min. or until edges are slightly golden
brown in oven that is 375 degrees
10. Transfer to wire cooling rack. Store in airtight container.
Yield 60
cookies.
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