In December last year I baked sugar cookies for my blessingway/baby shower and felt like I’d discovered cookie gold! I couldn’t have been happier with the results. A year later, with our mammoth trip and our son’s Lucia concert approaching, I tried to organise thank you gifts for his teachers in the midst of packing, cleaning, keeping up with social engagements and caring for the little ones. This year L’s teachers all received a hot chocolate mix jar, some mince pies and peppermint chocolate bark, but I wanted to make cookies too, so I fell back on my favourite sugar cookie recipe.
Not only do these cookies taste wonderful, they hold their shape and don’t spread or crack, which makes them perfect for decorating delicately with icing or fondant… or even for “cheating” your way to a decorated cookie, as I have done here…
I made this cookie dough 2 weeks in advance of baking the cookies, yet still felt the pressure of the ridiculous time crunch we were dealing with so, quite spontaneously, I invented* what could possibly be the easiest way to get a snowflake-decorated cookie effect, with an absolute minimum of work/preparation/mess/clean-up involved.
Interested in creating something pretty, festive and yummy whilst saving yourself a whole heap of time?
Read on, my friend…
FROSTY SNOWFLAKE-STAMPED SUGAR COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
2.5 dl (250 ml) butter, softened
2.5 dl (250 ml) granulated sugar white, processed in food processor for 30 seconds
½ tsp salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
A couple of drops almond extract
6 dl (600 ml) all-purpose flour
FOR DECORATING
White glitter/sparkling sugar for sprinkling
Snowflake fondant plunger cutters for stamping
Edible shimmer powder/pearl dust for brushing over
DIRECTIONS
- Cream butter, sugar and salt with mixer set at medium speed for about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- Add yolk and mix well. Add whole egg, vanilla and almond extract and mix until well-incorporated.
- Add flour, mixing at a low speed until just combined. Do not over-mix!
- Divide dough in halves and wrap in cling film**.
- Refrigerate until firm (at least one hour and up to 2 days).
- Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
- Dust work surface and rolling-pin with flour. Roll dough to about half a centimeter thickness, sprinkling with additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Cut into circles and place on baking paper-lined trays. And here’s where we get crafty!…
- Take a snowflake-shaped plunger cutter and stamp it down in the center of each cookie (the work of seconds!). Don’t be shy about it- you want to make a decent enough impression that you can clearly see a snowflake.
- Pinch a little glitter sugar between your fingers and sprinkle a little either over your snowflake “stamp” or in the space around it. Again, the work of seconds!
- Bake cookies in preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until they appear dry on the surface and are light golden brown on the edges (large cookies may take up to 12 or 13 minutes).
- Remove tray from oven and marvel at your cookies as they emerge ready-decorated! Allow cookies to cool on a wire rack.
- If you want to get extra fancy in the easiest of ways, quickly and lightly dust a little edible shimmer powder on the areas of your cookie that don’t have glitter sugar on them. This creates a lovely “frosty” effect that, once again, only takes seconds to achieve… and involves no preparation.
*I say “invented”, however I cannot know for sure if I am indeed the first person to think of this. In any case, I can honestly say I have not seen this on Pinterest or elsewhere yet.
**At step 4 you may wish to freeze in your dough for later use, as I did. My dough remained frozen for 2 weeks before I removed it and allowed it to defrost to a chilled temperature, before continuing the cookie-making process from step 7 onwards. So easy!
Cookie recipe adapted from this fabulous one from Karen’s Cookies.
Beautiful cookies with a minimum of work/time involved! Sign me up! This is a fantastic idea and the cookies are sooo pretty! A big bonus to your method (beyond the fantastic time saved from decorating) is that the round shape of your cookies packages sturdily for shipping/mailing or even gifting. Delicate corners don’t travel well. Here you get the delicate details from the imprint while maintaining a sturdy cookie! I am going to try this with regular cookie cutters because I don’t have the plunger type. Thanks!!
These are so gorgeous! I love simple (frosting-less) cookies, and these are just so pretty!
Thank you so much! Very sweet of you x
So pretty! And yes I hear you, no matter how well things are planned it seems like the holidays just seem to sneak up making for a bit of a mad rush!
Thank you! 🙂 xx
And really, it’s crazy, huh?! I have never been more well-prepared for Christmas and yet still there was a bit of a panic to get things sorted.
Reblogged this on thehouseoftherisingcake and commented:
they look so fine! need to get this snowflake stamp as well!
These are really gorgeous – and much healthier than frosting 🙂
Ah, thank you! I hadn’t really considered the health benefits, but you are probably right! And there are folks who really don’t like the taste of frosting/icing who might like these 🙂
Xx
Oh, you are clever! Excellent idea. I am trying to be organised but lots of little things keep popping up to subvert my plans. So I sing a little song to myself and hope everything will turn out all right, no matter if we somehow end up with baked beans on toast for Christmas 😀
Oh, thank you! 🙂 And I am certain you wont end up with beans on toast… but even if you did, you’d have your chin up at Christmas time, I am sure! x
😀 And I am sure beans on toast could be made to look very festive!
A sprinkling of parmesan “snow”, perhaps? 😉
🙂
Looks so fancy! Must try this.
Oh these are so pretty, and what a great idea! Cookie cutters and icing and all that can be fun, but it is so much work!
Yum! I think we would get a long great….I too am a major sweet tooth and all of your sweet treats look divine! Merry Christmas, Robyn
Thanks so much, Robyn! It’s a great time of year for us, huh? 😉 Merry Christmas! MM xx
The look adorable and the decoration is so elegant!
Thank you Francesca! Very sweet of you xx
Beautiful!
Thank you Sofia 🙂 x
I love this, so clever and pretty. I have the snowflake plunger too, so I will definitely have a go at trying this. Merry Christmas.
Thanks Julie! x
Wonderful! Merry Christmas to you too!
Lovely looking cookies, and I’m amazed you weren’t tempted by the cookie dough sooner … two weeks??? Now that’s restraint!
I too have been discovering the joys of the biscuit stamp – they are amazing aren’t they?!
Thank you :)! I wasn’t tempted only because I’d made the dough specifically for teacher gift cookies… otherwise I’d have baked some on the spot 😉 x
So pretty, elegant and yummy looking! Awesome job as usual, MM, photography and illustrations included! I bow to your creativity 🙂
Too kind, Stefano! Thanks very much 😀
So pretty! I’m going to compare your recipe with my sugar cookie recipe and try one next week, Happy Holidays!
Fabulous! Thank you and happy holidays to you and yours! x
These are so, so pretty– I’ve never seen a plunger like that to stamp cookies– but I bet I can find it on line somewhere! thanks for the beautiful idea…
I know it’s not conventional, but I had these fondant cutters lying around and really wanted to use them for something (but didn’t want to fuss with frosting and fondant)… so I thought I’d try to use them as a stamp! Try looking on amazon for PME fondant plunger cutters 🙂 xx
They look fab!! Great idea ☺️
Thanks so much 🙂 x