Christmas Cookie Party!

I get an inexplicable level of satisfaction from entertaining. It's just so enjoyable to me to have a bunch of people in the house, eating good food (preferably that I made) and making that contented-sounding conversational buzz. So, before I move, I wanted to put together a little holiday shindig with Dawn (roommate). We opted for a Sunday afternoon Christmas cookie decorating party, and it went really well. People were great sports, probably aided by the mulled wine, and, I have to say, there was some real creative talent in the room (not mine, I assure you).

Over the next few days I'll post several entries covering the savory appetizers that I put together to combat the overwhelming sugar intake that goes with cookie decorating, but I thought it made sense to start with the cookies themselves.

You do not want to know how much flour and sugar my house has gone through in the last 48 hours. You really, really don't.

Ok, Step 1: Make the sugar cookies (recipe below). I made a vanilla-almond cookie because I do like a wee bit more flavor than just sugar and flour. Also! Make the cookies a day in advance if you can. When you refrigerate the dough overnight, it becomes much more flavorful and much less ode du flour.


Step 2: Royal Icing! Ok, I'll admit that there are tastier icings out there, but if you add a little bit of almond or clear vanilla extract to this, it becomes much more palatable. What it lacks in flavor, however, it makes up for in utility. Royal icing is what you see in actual cookie shops. It's that super flat icing that makes perfect patterns that you go insane trying to replicate with the stuff you bought at the store, only to utterly fail. Despair no more, royal icing is easy to make and handy to work with. I used this recipe, and added almond extract to go with my vanilla-almond sugar cookies. Once you have the thick stuff ready, just pipe on the outline of whatever you want to do, like so:


Simple enough, yes? Step 3: water the icing down (as instructed in the recipe) and add food coloring. Fun (and 90% unrelated) fact: When I was a child, I went through a phase where I wouldn't eat dinner without turning something a weird color with those little drop bottles of food coloring, my mother thought it was weird, to say the least, but I ate whatever she put in front of me so long as I could turn it blue, so it worked. Good times. Ahem, moving on... It's much easier to put this icing in little squirt bottles (like these)that you can wield with ease and that aren't overly prone to making a huge goopy mess. Now, fill in the outlines with your color of choice.


Another color! (Red and green, because I'm just that original) Step 4: Walk away from the cookies. These little gems need to set overnight. And no, the cookies will not dry out if you leave them on your counter.


Step 5: Arrange them prettily and set them out to inspire your guests (or as snacks). Tada!


Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies
(I doubled the recipe for the party)

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2 sticks (salted) butter, cold (If you're stuck with unsalted, just add a dash of salt to the batter)
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 tsp pure almond extract

1) Cream butter and sugar.

2) Add egg and extracts, blend thoroughly.

3) Mix together flour and baking powder (and salt if you're adding it) and sift into the batter in stages, blending thoroughly as you go. Two points to make here: (1) I don't have a sifter either, but I do have a fine mesh strainer and it works just as well; (2) The dough is going to get pretty darn thick by the end, you will resort to using your hands and a spoon, not your mixer, when you add the final batch of flour.

4) The dough will be crumbly, but wrap it in cellophane and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Of course, you can skip this step... but don't.

5) Take the dough out and let it warm up just a little bit, then you should be able to roll it with ease.

6) Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, let cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes longer, then transfer to a cooling rack (I tend to jerry-rig something. For example, I've been known to take a shelf out of my oven (before heating it) to use as a cooling rack later).

So, I did make two exceptionally large cookies and Dawn issued a challenge to the partygoers: Make an entire nativity scene on a cookie. The challenge was accepted and here you have the result (brown = manger, green = baby jesus, red = camel). Pretty impressive, no?