Recipe

Holiday Sugar Cookies

Step 1: With a fork, combine flour and salt in a small bowl. With stand or hand mixer, beat together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy in a large bowl. Beat in vanilla and egg. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until combined.

Step 2: Form dough into two balls and flatten them into 6″ wide disks. Wrap disks in plastic and chill until firm for a minimum of 1 hour.

Step 3: Preheat oven to 350°F. On a well-flowered surface, roll out one disk of dough into a 1/4″ thick 8″ round (return dough to refrigerator if it seems too soft to roll out). With cookie cutters, cut out as many cookies as possible from dough and place cutouts onto two ungreased baking sheets, about 1″ apart.

Step 4: Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, until edges are golden, 9-12 minutes. Transfer sheets to cooling racks and cool completely before transferring to a plate or cookie jar. Meanwhile, gather scraps and chill 10-15 minutes until dough is firm enough to roll out again. Make more cookies with scraps and remaining dough and bake on clean baking sheets. Decorate with icing and sprinkles (optional).

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Decorative Sugar Cookie Icing

Step 1: Combine powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a bowl.

Step 2: Transfer 1/4 cup icing to a small bowl for each colour and tint with food colouring of your choice.

Step 3: Spoon each colour of icing into a sealable plastic bag. Press out excess air and snip a 1/8″ opening in one bottom corner of bag.

Step 4: Twisting bag firmly just above icing, pipe icing onto cookies to decorate. Add sprinkles if desired. Let icing dry about 1 hour before storing cookies. To store cookies layer between sheets of wax or parchment paper in an airtight container at room temperature. Cookies will keep for 1 week.