Cookies for Santa

As we always do, we made sugar cookies for Santa. We used a variety of shapes and decorated them on Christmas Eve. Santa clearly loved them, as they were gone the next day.

  

The sugar cookie recipe I use makes quite a bit of dough, so I divide into three parts, wrap each portion in saran wrap, and keep in the refrigerator until I am ready to use. I make cookies in batches over the course of a week using the dough (otherwise, it is too many for me to decorate at one time).

Alex helped decorate (in between eating the frosting). 

INGREDIENTS

 1 1/2 cups of butter, softened

 2 1/4 cups of white sugar

 4 eggs

3 teaspoons of vanilla extract

 5 cups of all-purpose flour

 2 teaspoons of baking powder

 1 teaspoon of salt

Original recipe makes 5 dozen

DIRECTIONS

• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
• Bake five to eight minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely before decorating.