It’s hard to create an old-fashioned holiday on a 2006 calendar without delicious Christmas cookies. From brightly colored Christmas trees to shimmering silver bells and dainty angels, these treats make the holidays special.
In fact, the homemade cookies are wonderful. However, they can be time consuming to prepare, especially when using complicated recipes that require hours in the fridge before they can be sliced, baked, and frozen.
Just in time for the holidays, we’re bringing you this easy recipe straight from Austin’s own Penny McConnell of Penny’s Pastries. This dough does not need refrigeration before rolling and cutting; It handles like a dream and produces buttery, great-tasting cookies.
You’ll find this and 18 other delicious cookie recipes in the recently published Cookie Stories: Life Moments and the Cookies that Inspired Them (Falling Star Press, 2005), written by Penny McConnell and Kathy Sutton.
Penny’s Roll and Cut Cookies
The recipe can be made as large as the capacity of your mixer and the finished dough can be kept in your freezer for up to a month. When you’re ready to use it, simply bring the dough to room temperature before rolling out and baking. Finish cookies with icing sugar or spread with tinted royal icing or buttercream.
Yield: 4-6 dozen cookies
Temperature: 325 degrees
Baking time: 8-10 minutes
2 cups of salted butter
2 cups of granulated sugar
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk
4 tablespoons of pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of almond extract
6 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare cookie sheets with kitchen parchment.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until smooth. Remember to only incorporate these ingredients, do not beat until light.
3. Add all liquid ingredients to mixer bowl and process.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder.
5. Add dry ingredients to mixer bowl and process until thick batter forms. This dough does not need refrigeration before rolling and cutting.
6. To prepare the dough for rolling and cutting, separate the finished dough into two large balls. Work with one ball of dough at a time.
7. Flour a work surface. Knead the dough several times to make it smooth before rolling it out.
8. Re-flour the surface if necessary. Sprinkle a light coating of flour directly onto the surface of the dough. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a disk until the dough is about ΒΌ” thick. (Roll out the dough thicker if you prefer a more cake-like texture for the finished cookies.) Work surface and turn it so it doesn’t stick.
9. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Leftover dough can be used multiple times.
10. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, turning pans once during the bake cycle. The cookies are perfect when the base is golden and the top is light blonde.
11. Let cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
You’ll want frosting for these cookies, so here’s a standard recipe for Royal Frosting.
royal icing
12 tablespoons of warm water
6 tablespoons meringue powder
7 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons flavoring such as almond extract
Instructions:
1. For lukewarm water in the bowl of the electric mixer. Add all other ingredients.
2. On low speed, mix ingredients together until they form a thick frosting.
3. When frosting is smooth, turn mixer to highest setting and process until frosting goes from glossy to opaque, has doubled in volume and is holding in stiff peaks.
4. Use as desired to decorate cookies