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You are here: Home / Cookies / Christmas Cookies & A Giveaway!

Christmas Cookies & A Giveaway!

November 29, 2013 by Amy 34 Comments

handmadeholidays

It’s now socially acceptable to decorate with all of the Christmas things! I just felt like stating that to you guys. πŸ˜›

Since it’s now officially the holiday season, I think I’m going to ask a certain husband who isn’t afraid of heights to go in the attic and grab all of the Christmas decor. ::fingers crossed:: I seriously can’t take 3 steps on a ladder without taking deep breaths and telling myself “I think I can…I think I can…”.

I just love making cookies for the holidays. I bake so many for gifts, since it’s always a winner with coworkers and neighbors. I learned a great trick when it comes to baking in bulk for the holidays…make your dough in advance to freeze and then bake them all later. It makes things a lot easier when you’re making dozens of cookies at once. πŸ™‚

What also makes things easier while baking is knowing that your favorite recipes will always come out the same when using quality ingredients. Over the past few years, I’ve learned that good, quality ingredients really do make a difference in your baking. For example, I used to grab store brand flour, and the results of my baking weren’t always consistent. I really thought it was me making a mistake in the recipe, but when I switched to a bag of King Arthur Flour, my favorite recipes come out the same way every time. I will admit that King Arthur Flour is slightly pricier than store brands, but to me, it’s worth it to use a brand that has such high quality standards when it comes to flour. You don’t have to order their flour online only either…they carry their flour at so many stores now (I recently saw their flour at Walmart for $3.95/bag!). Also, I’ve seen quite a few of their baking products, like espresso powder (which is so hard for me to find anywhere else…is it just me?) and specialty extracts, at Sur La Table. πŸ™‚

cookies3

Around the holidays, sugar cookies are especially my favorite treats to bake. With rolled cookies, you can cut them into festive shapes and ice/decorate them with royal icing, and with soft and chewy drop sugar cookies, you can make them festive by adding dyed buttercream and holiday sprinkles. While rolled sugar cookies can be a bit time consuming, King Arthur Flour has a great product, called white icing mix, that can help you with simple, no fuss icing for cookies. I used this product for the first time with my favorite rolled sugar cookie recipe using their light bulb holiday cookie cutter, and the cookies came out super cute! The icing mix comes with instructions to make it into a thin glaze or a pipe-able royal icing. It’s pretty versatile and very easy to use!

I love this cookie cutter since it’s a bit different than the usual ornaments/gift shaped cookies that I make. Whenever I make these again, I think I’m going to put them on a long, skinny tray with green royal icing piped between each bulb to look like a string of lights. πŸ™‚ Fun, right?

cookies2

I also made these soft frosted sugar cookies, which is a copycat recipe for the iced sugar cookies that are sold in grocery stores. I’ve been wanting to make these for a long time, since (confession) I love those darn cookies!

To make them holiday themed, I used red & white icing, and decorated them with this holly berry sprinkles set.

cookies1

As far as packaging these little cookies goes, it couldn’t be easier. I just placed a couple of cookies in these snowflake bags. and tied them together with some silver string that I had. You could also use decorative holiday twine, curling ribbon or regular ribbon.

This recipe for soft frosted sugar cookies came out so good. I think they taste better than the store cookies (which shouldn’t be a surprise…home baked always wins in my book), and they weren’t hard to make at all! If you prefer these cookies to rolled cookies, you can see that these would turn out to be just as festive for holiday gifting.

Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies
Source: Annie’s Eats

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

  • 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp. salt
  • 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 5 tsp. vanilla extract

For the frosting:

  • 5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  • 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tbsp.) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
  • 7-8 tbsp. milk
  • food coloring and sprinkles, optional

Directions:

  1. Β For the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with either parchment paper or silicone baking mats, and set them aside.
  2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside for later.
  3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating the mixture well after each egg and scraping down the bowl as necessary. Mix in the vanilla extract. Put the mixer on low speed, and add in the dry ingredients. Mix the dough until everything is just incorporated and mixed. Cover the bowl and chill the dough for an hour.
  4. Once the dough is chilled, take out the prepared cookie sheets. Scoop out a scant 1/4 cup of dough and roll the dough into a ball. With your hands, flatten the ball of dough slightly and place the dough on the cookie sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, being sure to space the cookies 2-3 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until they are just set (the edges will just starting to brown), being careful not to over-bake these. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for several minutes (to finish the baking process), and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
  5. To make the frosting, add the confectioners’ sugar to a medium-sized bowl. Add in the melted butter, vanilla and milk to the bowl. Whisk the icing until smooth, and if you need to, whisk in additional milk, 1 tsp. at a time, until you reach your desired consistency. If you’d like to, at this time dye the icing with food coloring (I prefer to use gels, especially for a color like red, since it’s so hard to attain with liquid food coloring).
  6. Once the cookies are completely cooled, frost the cookies using an offset spatula or spoon. Add sprinkles on top, if desired.

The generous people at King Arthur Flour want to offer one lucky reader a cookie kit that includes the products that I used to make the cookies featured in this post (pictured below). πŸ™‚

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To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: This giveaway is supplied by King Arthur Flour and is open to readers in the continental US only. Entries will be accepted until December 7th at 12:00am (central standard time). Winner will be emailed (make sure you leave an email address in the form), and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

DISCLAIMER: I was sent a package of King Arthur Flour products to make these cookies at no cost to me, for writing this post. King Arthur Flour is also supplying the same prize pack (pictured) for the giveaway. All opinions are 100% my own.

Filed Under: Cookies, Giveaways/Reviews, Holiday, Holiday Recipes

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Next Post: Holiday Cards from Minted & A Giveaway! »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tracy says

    November 29, 2013 at 9:54 am

    I love my willow baskets and cloth-lined bannetons (purchased a LONG time ago) for artisan bread baking. And their pain au chocolat sticks. And I have my eye on all of their paper baking pans for gift-giving, but haven’t bought those yet.

    Reply
  2. Theresa says

    November 29, 2013 at 10:25 am

    I’ve been picking up some really great holiday recipes at the King Arthur web site. A few extra sprinkles and flavorings are helpful in changing up a basic sugar cookie recipe. Not to mention a variety of cookie cutters.

    Reply
  3. Liz says

    November 29, 2013 at 11:46 am

    King Arthur has some great holiday recipes. I have many I want to try!

    Reply
  4. Josie says

    November 29, 2013 at 12:18 pm

    I’ve only used their plain white flour for baking.

    Reply
  5. Michelle s. says

    November 29, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    I love their white icing!

    Reply
  6. Lisa says

    November 29, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    Their whole wheat flour!

    Reply
  7. Shawna says

    November 29, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    I’ve never had a chance to use their products. Maybe if your Walmart is carrying the one close to me will also, so I have a chance to try their products.

    Reply
  8. Aims says

    November 29, 2013 at 9:12 pm

    Love that I can get it in grocery stores now.
    Also love cut out cookies

    Reply
    • Aims says

      November 29, 2013 at 9:16 pm

      Love their Whole wheat and good old AP flour too

      Reply
  9. Jenn K says

    November 29, 2013 at 11:59 pm

    I’ve never tried any of their products, but I’d love to try their all purpose flour or white whole wheat flour.

    Reply
  10. Hezzi-D says

    November 30, 2013 at 7:23 am

    I love the 9 grain flour and AP flour, as well as their liners.

    Reply
  11. Heather says

    November 30, 2013 at 9:57 am

    I love King Arthur All purpose flour! I use it all the time!

    Reply
  12. Betsy says

    November 30, 2013 at 11:45 am

    Love the baking flour.

    Reply
  13. christy says

    December 1, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    Your sweet treats always look amazing! I recently bought some King Arthur self-rising flour, and I was very impressed with my biscuits. They turned out PERFECT!

    Reply
  14. Carrie says

    December 1, 2013 at 7:11 pm

    Their flour, I haven’t got to try much else.

    Reply
  15. Toneria M says

    December 2, 2013 at 12:39 am

    I love the chocolate indulgence cake mix, the cake flour, and the yeast white roll mix. Those yeast rolls just melt in your mouth. I made them for Thanksgiving.

    Reply
  16. Julie says

    December 2, 2013 at 9:01 am

    All purpose flour is what I use
    thanks

    Reply
  17. Kate says

    December 2, 2013 at 7:51 pm

    All-purpose flour is my staple.

    So many giveaways lately! Love it!

    Reply
  18. Alexis K. says

    December 3, 2013 at 4:33 am

    All Purpose Flour is so versatile!

    Reply
  19. Emily says

    December 3, 2013 at 9:07 am

    King Arthur Flour really has some AMAZING products! And Christmas and baking just seem to go hand in hand!

    Reply
  20. Liz says

    December 3, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    Your ornament cookies are SO cute! I am a huge fan of KAF…it’s all I use anymore. My favorite is their all-purpose.

    Reply
  21. Suzy says

    December 3, 2013 at 9:18 pm

    My favorite KA flour product is the bread flour

    Reply
  22. Amanda says

    December 4, 2013 at 7:54 am

    Never tried their products, but would definitely try their self rising flour.

    Reply
  23. Maria says

    December 4, 2013 at 8:18 am

    KAF is the only flour allowed in this house! I was stoked to find their AP flour in bulk at BJs the other day for only $11!

    Reply
  24. MC Chau says

    December 4, 2013 at 5:21 pm

    I love their mixes!

    Reply
  25. Denise Fedor says

    December 4, 2013 at 11:41 pm

    I love the gluten free flours

    Reply
  26. Mandy says

    December 5, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    I love the KA bread flour!!!

    Reply
  27. Amber Felix says

    December 5, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    My favorite product is probably their eggnog cookie mix! I can spend a lifetime on their website.

    Reply
  28. beth says

    December 5, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    their boiled cider is amazing! I’ve also been fortunate to take a couple of their baking classes and shop in the store, it is really amazing!

    Reply
  29. rachel says

    December 5, 2013 at 3:28 pm

    I love their whole white wheat flour.

    Reply
  30. Kelsey says

    December 5, 2013 at 10:01 pm

    I love their bread flour. Nothing compares, in my mind.

    Reply
  31. Susan Christy says

    December 5, 2013 at 11:05 pm

    The only KA product I’ve tried is All Purpose Flour, but I would like to try nearly EVERYTHING in their catalog.

    Reply
  32. Jacqui says

    December 7, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    These are the best cookies, which as you know, can be a very dangerous cookie to have in the house ! Thanks for the recipe. It’s already a favorite.

    Reply
    • Amy says

      December 8, 2013 at 8:20 pm

      Yes! I wish they sold just individual cookies instead of dozen increments. This recipe is pretty dangerous too. πŸ™‚

      Reply

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Image Credit: Leslie Pendleton Photography

 

Hey y’all!

Thanks so much for reading! I’m Amy, and I live in south Louisiana with my husband and our rescue dog. I enjoy sharing my love for cooking, baking, crafts & more! Follow my daily adventures on social media!

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