WHAT'S COOKING?: A Month of Deliciousness for December

If you're like me, December is no time to count calories. It's the one month around here that diet-wise.... anything goes.

With that in mind, I'd like to start out the month of December with a delicious Sugar Cookie recipe. Every year I host a decadent cookie decorating party with a few dozen friends. It never fails to be a blast.
Generally, a few days prior to the party, I bake all the cut out cookies. Usually about 400, one year--even more!
Once baked, the cooled cookies are easily stored in layers in cardboard "robe" boxes from the department stores.

This gem from All Recipes yields about 50 cookies.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely and decorate as desired.

Some things I find helpful when making rolled, cut out cookies are:

~ Make sure your dough is well chilled. If it's not adequately cold, your cookies will be "flat" looking after baking. With the butter base in these, you need that dough cold--I can't stress that enough.

~ If possible, roll out your (chilled) dough on a marble counter top. I have ceramic tile counters myself, and purchased a small 20" x 12" slab of marble at Home Depot. What a difference it makes in my roll outs. If you don't have access to marble, just make sure your surface stays lightly floured so your cut out shapes don't stick to the surface. I lightly flour the marble slab, as well, between each batch of rolling.

~ Be patient. Sometimes the first roll out won't be perfect, however, they will be delicious.

~ Make sure your cookie sheets completely cool in between batches. In colder climates, that's easy, stick them out on the porch for 3 minutes and you're good to go. Others, like myself, can speed the cooling by standing the sheets upright in front of an open window.

Just don't put cut out shapes on an even slightly warm cookie sheet, the cookie will prematurely "spread" and totally defeat all of your dough chilling. They'll be "flat"...but delicious.

~ Do not over bake. If the edges start to brown, they're over baked. Check at the minimum baking time, and then stand watch ever second thereafter.

Now, you're all rolled, cut, baked, cooled and ready to decorate, right?

There are so many options when it comes to decorating I couldn't begin to cover them all. So I'll just touch on on a few of our personal favorites.

We do two basic types of frosting/icing at my party. One a rich, fluffy buttercream, the other a thin, light glaze.

Both are delicious, and have their own merits. Kids love the thick, sweet buttercream, doused in colored sugars, and sprinkles--while adults seem to enjoy the lighter, glazed cookies. They are equally fun to decorate I assure you.

Both types can be colored to the hues of your choosing with food coloring, or gels. I have come to love the gels because the colors are super-rich looking and you only need to add a small amount of the artificial coloring. Often times, previously, I would need to add so much food coloring to get my desired shade that it sometimes compromised the texture of the frosting.

Basically, I find if you're going for pastels--food coloring is fine, but if you want the vivid, POW! colors, use gels instead. I buy mine at Michaels

Craft Stores, and they have a wonderful selection of colors.

Pick up some new paintbrushes while you're there, it's fun to "paint" on the glazes. You can get pretty fancy...