Year after year we bake these sugar cookies and have a fun decorating day with my mom, grandma, and sometimes a friend or two 🙂
They are easy to make and great to give out and/or bring to holiday parties. As usual, I lean toward non-traditional and BRIGHT for Christmas colors. So Blade face and pink sweaters it was for me. ha. I got this pack of food coloring, mixed a little water with it, and just painted on the frosting with a tiny brush just as I would with my illustrations! We’ve collected cookie cutters over the years from Williams-Sonoma, Amazon, and the little ones that fit on coffee mugs are from Sur La Table.
Happy baking!
XO
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For the cookies:
1 cup of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking sode
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl combine the butter with sugar, eggs, vanilla and almond extract and beat using an electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. In another bowl combine flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Cover the bowl and chill for 2 hours. Then bake at 400 for 4-6 minutes (just keep an eye on them so they don’t overcook)
For the frosting:
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Blend ingredients with an electric mixture until shiny and smooth, and a bit extra milk as needed. The frosting should be very thick so it hardens on the cookies, this is the key to being able to paint them! Or you can add food coloring to the frosting and frost as normal. The cookies need to be completely cool before frosting.
