Sugar cookies

More than turkey with all the trimmings, there are two recipes that tell me Christmas is here: these sugar cookies and my great-grandmother’s Christmas cake. I can’t remember when I actually first started making these cookies but absolutely everyone loves them. The cookies themselves are barely sweet and are either slightly soft or have a solid snap depending on whether you bake them for 4 or 6 minutes. The glaze is not optional - it turns into a beautifully glossy shell whilst adding the perfect amount of vanilla-imbued sweetness. The charm of these cookies lie in their simple but addictive flavour so be warned: there will always be someone’s hand in the cookie jar.

One of my favourite memories from third year is making these sugar cookies with my flatmates. It was one of those happy moments you can’t engineer. We were living in a beautiful house but things had started to go sour with one of our flatmates, who we all adored, and we were sad and uneasy. I decided to bake because that seemed to be my answer to all things at uni haha. Once I’d made and chilled the dough, I sent a message to my flatmates to say they could help me cut out and decorate the cookies if they wanted to. I really didn’t expect them to troop down the stairs together. Before long we were all around the table cutting out shapes, pulling out trays of slightly golden cookies from the oven and dipping them in the glossy white icing once cool. There was icing sugar everywhere but we were all smiling and laughing, singing along to Christmas songs and spurred by Danni (who else) to make some ruder cookies than I would display on this family-friendly blog ;) It was glorious.

This year, I decided to make these cookies with my best friend Jess, who truly lives for Christmas. As we were slightly more ambitious (and classy) with our decorating, it took us a whole day to make these cookies but it was honestly so much fun. A lot of sugar cookie enthusiasts will recommend lining the shape of your cookies with a thicker icing and then flooding them with thinner icing. I’m sure this makes a beautifully professional cookie but it’s not feasible if you opt for lots of small cookies with detail and, like me, have a finite amount of patience. If you don’t mind a few imperfections, this is what Jess and I did. We made the base colours for the icing on our cookies first: white for the stars, green for the trees and a toasty brown for the gingerbread men. We used wide bowls for this and then just dipped the front of the cookies into the icing, letting the excess drip off into the bowl and then leaving the cookies on sheets of parchment paper until the icing had set - this only takes about 10 minutes. I then mixed and coloured some fresh icing for the details and dipped in icing tips and chopsticks to draw on the finer details like eyes, bow ties and buttons for the gingerbread men and lights and baubles for the Christmas trees. We’d planned to ink on intricate snowflake designs on the stars but by the end of a day of decorating, we were like hell no. It was Jess’s cute move to line a few of the stars with more white icing and then pat on the sprinkles. It’s why I keep her around. Though it was hard work, Jess and I both agreed this is our new Christmas tradition and next year we’ll have Niluja to egg us on when we get lazy. If you haven’t gotten messy with some arts and crafts since you left school, why not try decorating some cookies? If all else fails, there’s nothing like biting the head off a gingerbread man ;) Happy holidays, everyone!

Recipe from the ever-wonderful Kittencal. Makes 30-40 small cookies.

INGREDIENTS

Cookies:

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Icing:

2 cups icing sugar
1-3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon liquid glucose
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
food colouring of your choice

METHOD

For the cookies:

in a large bowl combine butter with sugar, eggs, vanilla and almond extract; beat using an electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy.

In another bowl combine the flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the butter mixture until well blended.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.

Set oven to 200°C.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper (do not grease cookie sheets use parchment paper only).

Lightly dust your surface with icing sugar and then roll out the dough into about 1/4-inch thickness.

Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters.

Place cookies 2-inches apart on cookie sheet.

Bake 4-6 minutes and cool completely before icing.

For the icing:

In a small bowl mix the confectioners sugar with milk (start with 1-2 tablespoons, you will likely need more milk for the perfect spreading consistency).

Beat in liquid glucose and vanilla extract until the icing is smooth and glossy (if the icing is too thick add in a small amount more of liquid glucose).

Divide into as many separate bowls as you wish for different colours.

Add in food colouring until desired intensity is achieved.

Paint the icing over the cookies using a brush, or dip edges of cookies into icing.

Allow to set on waxed paper.

Notes : 4-6 minutes may seem a short time but it’s all your cookies need so keep a watchful eye on the oven and adjust the time depending on how soft or firm you like your cookies. For the icing, if you don’t have liquid glucose or corn syrup, leave it out and replace with more milk - it won’t be quite as glossy but it will set fine (I didn’t use any for this batch). For the food colouring, I’d recommend going for something more concentrated than the variety you get in supermarkets. Although it may seem pricey at first, this set from Wilton has all the colours you’ll ever need. Crucially though, you only need a few drops to achieve vivid colours without messing with the taste or consistency of your icing. Finally, play around with the amount of vanilla essence you add to the icing - I like them to be really vanilla-y but it's up to you :)