Food Friday! : Festive Butter Cookies

Buttercream Iced Butter Cookies

One of the many things that I fondly remember about the holidays (all of them!) was my mother's butter cookies (thanks Mama for the recipe!). Each holiday of course was represented by various holiday-appropriate shapes and the three of us kids devoured them. She would keep extras in the freezer, hoping we would never know they were there, and instead we just got used to eating frozen cookies. :) I almost prefer them that way now. I will admit, this recipe is a little bit labor intensive, with the rolling of the dough, cutting out of the cookies, baking the cookies, and icing them (and we never really appreciated the amount of work that went into them), but it is well worth it! And it makes for truly beautiful cookies, if I may say so myself. I hope you enjoy! 


Ingredients:


 (for cookies)
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tsp vanilla 
3 cups flour 
1/2 tsp baking powder


(for icing)
1 box powdered sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 tsp vanilla
1-3 tbsp milk for thickness


Preparation


Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add beaten egg and mix well. Then add vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Stir into butter/egg/sugar mixture. Form dough into giant ball.

On a floured surface, roll dough (I start with about 1/4 of the total amount of dough) out until its about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.

Cut with cookie cutters. I use pumpkins and leaves for fall (although there is a very wide assortment of other shapes you can use).

Place on ungreased cookie sheet (or on silpat) and bake approximately 5-7 mins or until edges are being to lightly brown. Place on cooling rack to completely cool.

For the icing,  cream together 1/2 cup butter (softened) and powdered sugar. Then add vanilla and blend thoroughly. Begin by adding 1 tbsp of milk at a time until the desired consistency is achieved. I normally only add the 1 tbsp, but if you would prefer thinner icing, you can add more. Add food coloring dropwise until you get the color you want. I used several drops of both red and yellow for the pumpkin color and several drops of only green for the stem.

Ice the cookies once they are completely cool. It may even be the perfect opportunity to break up the task of making the cookies and ice them on a different day. The cookies can be stored in refrigerator or freezer. Enjoy!