Christmas sugar cookies

Start this Christmas season with a Christmas cookie classic. There’s nothing better than Christmas sugar cookies made from scratch and I am sure, or better I can bet, you’ll go crazy for these ones. Simple yet delicious cookies, such as a Christmas tree, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and of course the snowflake, are covered with beautiful icing decorations.

If you decide or better when you decide to make this recipe, make sure you have a lot of time. In fact, it is better if you plan ahead. Firstly, the dough needs to chill, secondly, the cookies need to be completely cooled and thirdly, the icing needs about 24 hours to completely harden.

I did plan ahead. To be exact, I divided the “work” between three days. The first day I baked, the second day I applied the “base” icing and the third day I finished with the final details.

Rolling out the dough and baking

A quick tip; when rolling out the dough, place a piece of transparent foil at the bottom and on top and then roll it out. This will prevent the dough from sticking and make your work easier and quicker. Yes!

Also, when baking, depending on how big or how small your cookies are, I used three baking sheets. I kept alternating them; while one just came out of the oven and needed to cool down, the second one was in the oven and the third (cold one) was at the table where I was cutting into cookie shapes. This is not a must, but it’s another time-saver. Wink.

The best royal icing

For the royal icing, I bought the royal icing mixture from Fun Cakes. I like it, it works perfectly and the cookies look fabulous. I use it for the Halloween monster doughnuts, too. However, you can find plenty of recipes for it around the internet.

Moreover, the important ingredient for the royal icing is the meringue powder, which gives more stability to it. And it’s so easy to make and to use. All you need to do is add a teaspoon of water and pipe it on the cookies. A quick tip, start making a thicker icing for the outline and then thinning it a bit for the inside of the outline.

I coloured my royal icing with gel food colouring by Wilton. These colours are extremely pigmented, therefore you shouldn’t need much. The tip of the toothpick is enough. If you want a more vibrant colour add some more. Oh, I also suggest making a bit more than you think you’ll need. After drying, the royal icing tends to darken a bit (they say). I barely noticed the difference, though.

How to apply the royal icing? Maybe it’s not a big deal to you, but it is to me. You can pipe the icing with a piping bag or those plastic squeeze bottles. But, since I am learning to become a pastry chef, I wanted to challenge myself and make paper piping bags myself. Basically, I cut a parchment sheet into 12 triangles and out of each triangle I made a small piping bag. You can load only one spoon of icing in it, but it is convenient. And I also needed to practice. And I did it. I made around thirty of those. Bravo me! Wink.

One more time, the icing should dry for at least 8 hours in order to keep the cookies beautiful when storing them. The best way to store Christmas sugar cookies is, place them in an airtight glass jar or metal box. If you plan to eat them straight away, you can wait only a couple of hours, though. On the other hand, if you plan to freeze them, then do it before applying the icing.

For more Christmas season recipes check out these: Christmas fruit cake, lovely Linzer cookies, a warm winter-spiced pear cocktail, a creamy baked milk rice pudding or delicious Christmas gingerbread brownies.

Ingredients for about 45-50 Christmas sugar cookies with easy icing:

• 200 g flour
• 125 g butter (cold, cubed)
• 100 g sugar
• 1 package vanilla sugar (8 g)
• 1 egg

Ingredients for the icing:

• Royal icing mix (Fun Cakes)
• food colouring (Wilton) (I used royal blue, red red, ivory, leaf green and pink)
• sugar pearls

To begin, prepare the cookie dough (sweet shortcrust pastry). In a bowl or food processor (it’s the quicker way), combine flour, cold butter, sugar and vanilla sugar. Blitz until it looks like sand. At this point, crack in an egg and blitz again until the dough forms a ball.

Place the dough on a cling film foil, roll it out a bit, wrap in the foil and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your working space, a rolling pin, cookie cutters, baking sheets with parchment paper (the number of batches will depend on the size of your cookies).

Once you are ready, preheat the oven at 160º C and take half of the dough out of the fridge. Put the other half, wrapped, back in the fridge. In order to prevent the dough from sticking, place it between two sheets of cling film foil and roll it out about 3-5 mm thick.

Then, remove the foil and using your favourite Christmas cookie cutters (my choice were a snowflake, Rudolph and the Christmas tree) cut into shapes. Transfer the cut cookie dough on the baking sheet, shortly knead together and re-roll the remaining dough and cut in some more cookie shapes.

Once you have no space left on the baking sheet, put the cookies to bake for 7-10 minutes and continue with the second baking sheet. Cookies are ready when lovely golden on the top and lightly coloured around the edges. Continue with re-rolling the leftover dough until all is used, the second half from the fridge included.

After baking, remove the cookies together with parchment paper from the baking sheet and allow them to cool completely. I let mine to cool overnight.

Furthermore, prepare small cups or bowls for as many icing colours you’re going to use. However, start with one colour, colour the cookies and then proceed to the next colour. In a cup add two spoons of royal icing mixture, add a teaspoon of liquid, such as water or milk and stir until completely smooth. It should hold a soft peak that doesn’t spread after five seconds when piped. That means the consistency is right and ready to use.

Also, I suggest making a thicker consistency (piping icing) to create the borders and then, by adding some drops of water you make it more fluid and perfect for filling the space inside the borders. If the icing hardens, simply stir it or cover with some cling foil.

Just one more thing before applying it on the cookies. To add some colour to your royal icing, dip the toothpick tip in the gel colour and then in the royal icing. Stir and repeat the action (using each time a clean toothpick) until you reach the desired colour.

Now, to make the outline for the cookie design load your icing into plastic squeeze bottles or piping bags, using a really small nozzle tip (sizes 1,5 and 2) and pipe it directly and nicely on the cookies following the outline. I simply cut off the tip of my paper piping bag.

After the outline is done, add a couple of drops of water to your icing, stir and reload the piping bag. Pipe it on the cookies to fill the space inside the outline. In order to put the icing in all those small corners, simply use a toothpick or a quilling tool to push it there. Sometimes some air bubbles appear. Pop them using a toothpick, too.

Before adding some more decoration, allow the icing to dry completely. Leave it to dry for 8 hours or overnight. Furthermore, add the last touches, for instance, the snowflake design and some sugar pearl sprinkles, Rudolph’s nose, eye and red collar, the Christmas tree decorations and lights. And again, leave to dry overnight.

Once the icing has set, store the Christmas sugar cookies in an airtight container (I put them in a glass jar). I am so proud of the results. They taste an look fabulous. These cookies are a wonderful and beautiful idea for a present, too.

Happy holidays!