Vanilla and Chocolate Christmas Sugar Cookies

Vanilla and Chocolate Christmas Sugar Cookies

Snowflakes

For my Christmas Cookies, I used Vanilla and Chocolate dough. I love Sweetopia's Chocolate Sugar Cookie recipe. The rich chocolate taste of the cookie and chewy texture is delightful. The chocolate dough is easy to work using a rolling pin to roll out the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper. I used multiple cutters for my shapes and rolled a quarter of the dough at a time keeping the rest in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

Christmas Stockings

For the Chocolate Sugar Cookie recipe please visit Sweetopia: http://sweetopia.net/2013/12/chocolate-sugar-cookie-recipe-cut-out-cookies/.

Snowmen

Chocolate Sugar Cookie
Ingredients
2 cups (4 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened

2 cups Sugar

2 Extra Large Eggs

3 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

4 cups All-Purpose Flour

1 ½ cups Cocoa Powder

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

Reindeer

Reindeer

Directions
Sift Flour, Cocoa Powder and Salt in large bowl and combine with spatula; put aside.

Cut each stick of Butter into 8 pieces.

Cream the Butter and Sugar together in a bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment on low to medium speed. Mix until incorporated, about 1 minute.

Scrape sides of bowl with spatula and mix again for 5-10 seconds more.

Chocolate Boys and Girls Sugar Cookies

Vanilla Boys and Girls Sugar Cookies

Add Eggs one at a time. Scrape down bowl with spatula and mix again for another 10 seconds.

Add Vanilla Extract and mix for 1 minute.

Slowly add Flour mixture to bowl and mix on low speed for 1 minute. When Dough clumps around paddle attachment, it is ready.

Use rolling pin and roll out Dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Cover Dough with plastic wrap and cool in fridge for 1-2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Trees

Take one quarter of Dough, and roll out further and cut out desired shapes. Repeat rolling the Dough and cutting shapes until you have used it all.

Place cookie shapes on parchment lined baking sheet and space apart 2 inches.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until center of cookie no longer looks wet. My cookies baked in 10 minutes.

Let cookies cool in baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour.

Let cookie sheets cool completely before you bake again. Repeat until you have baked all the cookies.

Ornaments

Vanilla Sugar Cookies
Please visit Joy of Baking for the Sugar Cookie recipe and directions:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/SugarCookies.html

Royal Icing
For the Royal Icing recipe, please visit Joy of Baking: http://www.joyofbaking.com/RoyalIcing.html

I made the Royal Icing with Egg Whites, Lemon Juice and Confectioners Sugar, but there is also a recipe using Meringue Powder. The video tutorials are helpful if it is your first time making Royal Icing.

I double each recipe and made 2 consistencies of Royal Icing for borders and to fill the cookies.

I put aside the white icing I needed and tinted the rest with Wilton Gel Colors in teal and royal blue. I used plastic containers to color the Royal Icing.

I transferred the icing immediately into Squeeze Bottles using a funnel to prevent it from spilling. When you are not using the bottles, keep the tips covered. If the icing hardens due to exposure to air, spray a little bit of water and shake bottle well holding the tip with your finger. Test the icing consistency on a paper towel before decorating the cookie.

Candy Canes

Decorating the Cookies
Once all your cookies have cooled, do the borders first and let them dry completely before filling the cookies. If you add sprinkles over the filled icing do it while it is wet. Decorate as desired.

Let the cookies dry overnight. I place them in cookie sheets and leave them uncovered for 4 to 5 hours and then cover with plastic wrap overnight to complete drying.

Enjoy! Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays!

-Sophia/Two Frys