Merry Christmas!!!

One last Blog post before Christmas!  The finale of our Holiday cooking is our huge batch of sugar cookies that we make every year on Christmas Eve.  I have backed away from all the different kinds of Christmas cookies that I used to make to concentrate on candy making, but I can't resist these fabulous soft and fun to make and eat goodies once a year.  This makes about 8-10 dozen cookies and takes the four of us about 2 hours to decorate.  By the end, we are all sick of cookies and sticky up to our elbows, but the cookies are so good they are usually gone within a few days.  The recipe is from a former family member, and we decorate with a variety of colored sugars and sprinkles.  This year I also found some intricate little sugar decorations at a cake shop, and we added them for a special little touch.

Soft Sugar Cookies
8.5 c flour
3 c sugar
4 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
2 t salt

Mix these together and rub in 1 lb butter or margarine.

1.5 c milk
1 T vinegar

Mix these and sit 10 minutes for milk to sour, add:

4 t vanilla
2 eggs,

mix these in with the milk, then add to the shortened dry ingredients a little at a time until completely mixed.  Chill overnight, then roll out to 1/4" thick and cut out shapes.  Bake at 325 for 15 minutes.  Cool, frost, and decorate.

Icing
1 stick butter
2 t vanilla
4 c powdered sugar
3 T milk

(actually, we used about 4 times this much icing)

Alternatively, you can decorate with sugar before baking and forget the icing.  My dad likes them this way, but this year my kids over ruled their Grandpa.

In addition to the traditional Christmas shapes we make crabs and lighthouses to symbolize our yearly trip to Chincoteague.  (i.e.  Sandy-Claws, the Christmas Crab) and other stuff to remind us of fun stuff we've done through the year.  This year the dinosaurs symbolize the time Melissa and Julia spent volunteering at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History summer camps, where Rebecca was also a camper.

Merry Christmas!!!!