I woke up feeling a chill in the air and burrowed down a little deeper into the covers to hide a little longer from the day. Then I smelled the coffee and decided to tear myself away from the comfort of my bed. The living room curtains were drawn open and Norm said, “Look.”
Jack Frost had paid Louisiana a visit while Mr. Sand Man was doing his work on our eyes.
When Father Time – that dastardly rogue – steals my minutes, I have no fear. My trusty friend Tradition comes to the rescue and restores – albeit temporarily – my innocence, my childhood, my blind faith in peace on Earth. No need for words at a time like this. Frost on the landscape implies that it’s time to make Christmas cookies.
I pick up the phone. “Jillian!”
“I know, Mom. We’re baking today!”
Here is our Christmas cookie tradition:
Traditional Roll-Out Cookies
Yield: 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 ½ cups flour
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar at medium speed in a large bowl. Mix in egg and vanilla. Blend in baking powder, then flour, one cup at a time. Divide dough into two balls.
Roll the first ball onto a floured surface until cookies measure 1/8 inch in thickness.
Cut with cookie cutters into various shapes. Repeat with the second ball of dough.
Bake 6-7 minutes. Cookies will not expand nor rise very much. They should still be white with a bit of golden brown around the edges.
Remove from pan with a spatula and cool on a cookie rack or large platter.
Now for the fun part – decorating them!
Royal Icing
Yield: 4 cups icing
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 10-12 tablespoons water
Mix meringue powder and powdered sugar. Add a few tablespoons of water at a time until icing reaches spreading consistency. If you are going to pipe your icing onto your cookies, make the icing a little thinner by adding more water.
Spread the icing on the cookies and decorate with candy, sugar, and whatever else your heart desires!
Tell me, Gentle Readers, what are some of your Christmas traditions?
Stacy Rambles 
Would this happen to be the recipe that used to be on the back of the Jack Frost brand granulated sugar? Lost our copy that we always used.
No, Donna, this is the Wilton recipe that I’ve always used. But it’s super easy and tasty! ❤
Great! Thanks!
We make Christmas cookies too, but generally use the tubes of ready-made coloured icing to decorate them, along with silver balls and things that you press into the dough before baking. I have never heard of “meringue powder”!
Other Christmas traditions, although I haven’t done any this year, are making pfeffernusse and also cranberry bread. It’s not too late for the cranberry bread.
This year I tried my hand at making “peppermint bark”. I wasn’t too sure it was a success – had intended to give it away – but in the process of tasting and deciding, suddenly it had all been eaten up! So we will make another batch.
I just discovered peppermint bark myself, and I love it. I think I’ll try to make it next year.
Meringue powder is just an egg white substitute. I use it instead of egg whites because the icing is not cooked.
Merry Christmas, Christine! ❤
Those are very pretty and yummy looking cookies! Having your sweet daughter help you bake them is the best ingredient of all, though! Thank you for sharing the recipe. xx
You’re welcome, Karen. And you’re right – time with Jillian is the best part of the holidays. ❤
How wonderful that Jillian lives close enough to come over and bake cookies with you. They look very yummy. Would love a bite of one right now. Our main tradition involves those Santas and Snowmen. 🙂
And what an awesomely whimsical tradition that is, Kathy! ❤
Sour Cream Christmas Cookies and homemade summer sausage! Generally only take the time at Christmas to make these…funny when you consider how busy our lives are throughout the year that during the season when we have so much more to do that is when I “find” time for these yummy treats.
Another tradition is the Santa Box for the grand kids. It is a box I found years ago depicting Santa in a truck full of presents; thank God I bought extra as two more grand babies have come along since then. Into this box goes little things that they get to open on the days they visit (one per visit) in December.
What sweet traditions, Rhonda. Children make everything even more fun, don’t they? ❤
Ok, so do those count as butter cookies or sugar cookies?
(Our holiday cookie cutters are gingerbread men missing limbs.)
(hehehe)
Hmmm….I would say they are a combination of the two. So let’s say bugar cookies. Oh, no. That sounds gross. How about sutter cookies. 😀