Sugar Cookie Secrets

I love sugar cookies around the holidays, but they're an awful lot of work to make. Make the dough. Refrigerate it for two hours. Roll the dough on a floury, messy counter top surface. Cut the dough into shapes. Bake. Frost. See? Lots of steps. Therefore, as much as I love them, I usually leave the difficult baking jobs to my mom. She'll save plenty of cookies for me to devour at Christmas.

This year, however, I made a boatload of sugar cookies for my Christmas Cookie Swap at the beginning of December. I spent an entire day making unfrosted cookies for the kids' frost-your-own-cookie table thinking they'd go nuts with the activity and I'd need lots of cookies. The kids did have fun, but I didn't need nearly as many cookies as I thought. After the party, I was left with two Tupperware containers full of unfrosted sugar cookies.

What I've since discovered are a few tips to frosting sugar cookies:

1) Frost sugar cookies when you're not burnt from baking. I sat down at the table the other day during Tory's afternoon nap, laid out all my frosting ingredients and wax paper and JUST FROSTED COOKIES. It was relaxing. I listened to Christmas music and took my time decorating lovely Christmas cookies for our friends and neighbors. Usually, by the time the frosting part of sugar cookie making rolls around, I'm so over the whole process I'm just trying to get it done. From this point forward, I'm always going to frost another day when I'm fresh and engaged in making them.

2) For the Cookie Swap's frost-your-own-cookie table, I bought these squeeze bottles for the frosting. (I'm sure I could've found them even cheaper at a Dollar Store, but I'm lazy and I like things shipped directly to my doorstep in two days or less). Images of little kids slinging frosting across my dining room entered my brain and I knew I needed some way to contain the temptation. Enter frosting in squeeze bottles. Before the party, I snipped the tops of each bottle to allow more frosting squeeze ease.

Since I had the squeeze bottles on hand, I used them to decorate my sugar cookies this year. BEST. IDEA. EVER! I will forever and always use squeeze bottles to decorate sugar cookies because it made decorating so easy and precise. I filled each squeeze bottle with a frosting color and popped the entire bottle in the microwave for 20 seconds. The result was the perfect consistency of icing in an easy-to-control container for decorating. Each time the frosting thickened enough to cause difficult squeezing, I re-microwaved it for 20 seconds.

My cookies turned out so beautiful, I'm having a hard time eating them! (Naturally, I'm eating all the ugliest ones first).

3) Keep the sprinkles simple. Unless you're a kid, no one really likes to eat a mouthful of crunchy sprinkles, do they? I tend to prefer the cookies with only frosting. The Christmas trees pictured above have a M&M for a the tree topper, which I'm fine with consuming (for artistic purposes, of course). I use sprinkles as a last resort to cover up an already ugly decorating job or when I have no idea how to decorate a cookie. Stars were like that for me this year. Every design I tried looked ugly, so frosting with sprinkles they became.

4) Finally, a little mess is okay. Aside from the flour mess I created in the kitchen in the actual baking of the cookies, frosting them also proved to be on the messy side. Damn those rolly sprinkle balls! I'm still sweeping up sprinkles days after the frost-your-own-cookie table and despite my own efforts to use a plate when sprinkling cookies, I also dropped a few sprinkles on the floor. Eventually, it'll all clean up. Or, the dog will eat it. Or you'll have sprinkles stuck in the crevasses of your table until Easter. It's all part of the art of making sugar cookies.

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 6

For today's Christmas advent calendar activity, Tory and I took part in a holiday tradition on Andi's side of the family: we made lefse.

Lefse is a traditional Scandinavian recipe made simply of potatoes and flour. The actual technique of making it is much more complicated than the ingredients would suggest and you need lots of special tools to prepare it. Andi's mom, Janie, learned to make lefse from her grandma when she was a little girl. Andi's sister, Lindsay, has been making lefse since she was two years old and today was Tory and I's first time making it, too. This recipe and the tradition of making lefse around the holidays has been in the family for generations.

Janie and Lindsay ready to make lefse

Janie gave us a cheating head-start in our lefse making today by preparing the dough ahead of time. Combining the potato and flour mixture sounds like the messy part, so I was glad to forgo participation in that step. When Tory and I arrived today, Janie presented Tory with her very own lefse stick - with her name and the year printed on it to signify her very first time making lefse - and an adorable Santa apron she'd made. Of course, Tory couldn't actually help prepare the lefse so Grandpa Jim kept Tory entertained in the living room while Lindsay, Janie, Andi's Aunt Carla and I got to work.

Tory and Grandma Janie in their Christmas aprons

The first step is to roll the lefse dough onto a floury surface, using a rolling pin. When the lefse dough is very flat and round, take the lefse stick and gently slide it underneath the dough to pick it up and lay it flatly on the lefse griddle.

Aunt Carla and Lindsay rolling out lefse dough

Lindsay, Grandma Janie and Tory making lefse on the griddle

Use the lefse stick to pop any air bubbles that arise while the lefse is cooking. (It's a good way to take out some frustration - SMACK)! Flip the dough over half way using the same technique with the lefse stick, then remove the lefse and place it between a piece of cloth to cool.

Most people eat lefse with butter and sugar spread on top. I can't wait to have mine for breakfast tomorrow morning - YUM!

I'm so thankful for Andi's amazing family who share their holiday traditions with me. We had a ball making lefse today. Can't wait until next year!

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 5

Tory and I made homemade Chex Mix today on our fifth day of the Christmas advent calendar. Nothing feels like the holiday season more than the aroma of homemade Chex Mix cooling on my counter top.

Which is silly I guess, because the ingredients are available all year round. I could make it a million times throughout the year, but I never do. It's a Christmastime tradition I reserve for December when I make big batches of the salty snack and stuff myself to the brim. It's my absolute favorite, more than any other holiday treat.

The tradition dates back to my childhood when my mom would make heaps of homemade Chex Mix. My sister and I were so crazed over it, my mom would hide Tupperware containers of the good stuff all over the house so ensure it'd last throughout the month.

The original Chex Mix recipe calls for pretzels, mixed nuts and bagel chips but I've crafted my own version over the years. I'm not a big fan of any of those ingredients, so I up the ratio of Chex and use Cheez Its, Cheerios and regular peanuts.

Tory helped by pouring the mixture of cereal into the bowl. She lost interest halfway through, and I ended up finishing it on my own. Good thing it's a low-key recipe.

To ensure I won't eat it all myself, I plan to package some of the Chex Mix in cello bags and give it away to the neighbors, the mailman and garbageman, along with cookies collected at Sunday's Cookie Swap. That activity on our advent calendar can't come soon enough ... I can barely resist the Chex Mix goodness calling me from my kitchen.

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 4

For our Christmas advent calendar activity today, Tory and I made cinnamon applesauce ornaments.

My little baker helped stir the applesauce in a bowl before I mixed in the cinnamon. In between taking big fistful bites, that is.

I remember making these ornaments with my mom and sister when I was a little girl. It was one of my favorite things to do at the holidays back then, and one of the memories I most look forward to creating with Tory. 

I couldn't quite remember how to make these, so I used this recipe I found online. I guess it's not rocket science, simply mix applesauce and cinnamon together, but I downsized the recipe to one cup of applesauce to limit the amount of ornaments we made. Quickly I figured out an easy trick to keeping the ornaments' shape. I used a spatula to wipe away the excess applesauce mixture from the cookie cutter and baked them in a 200 degree oven for two hours. 

Before I baked the ornaments, I poked a hole in the top so we can use them as tie-ons to our Christmas presents. Or maybe we'll hang them in the Christmas tree. Either way, I had a great day in the kitchen with my baby girl. 

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 3

Today's Christmas advent calendar activity called for decorating a felt Christmas tree. I purposefully kept today's event simple because I knew I'd need a breather after yesterday's Cookie Swap.

As we lounged around the house today, playing toys and reading books, Tory wandered over to the felt Christmas tree on the wall, with her baby doll tucked underneath her arm, and began pulling off the felt ornaments.

She just melts my heart.

Auntie Lindsay gave Tory this cute Santa Claus book yesterday that says "ho ho ho" on the very last page.  We read the story about a hundred times today and by the end, she was saying Santa's jingle right along with me.

By December 25th, we should have it down pat.

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 2

What's a girl to do with dozens of freshly-baked sugar cookies? Host a Christmas Cookie Swap for all her friends and family! That's exactly what Tory and I did on the second day of our Christmas advent calendar.

This is the fourth year I've hosted a holiday cookie party and each year's party is a little different than the last. In 2009 and 2010, a few of my close friends and Minnesota family gathered to bake Christmas cookies. Last year, Andi and I hosted a couple's holiday cocktail party and cookie swap. This year with Andi's busy work schedule, I decided Tory and I would host a Christmas Cookie Swap together with kids in the mix.

I sent these invitations to all our party guests a few weeks ago. Either today was a good date for everyone to get together or the simple fact kids were welcome meant almost every person I invited to the party came to celebrate. There were 20 adults and 24 kids in all (who were mostly under the age of six except for Andi's nine and 10-year-old cousins). My house was plum FULL of people and my heart just couldn't have been happier. This is the reason for the season (after the Jesus part, of course).

I served pinwheel roll-ups, meatballs, meat and cheese, cinnamon almonds and a hot chocolate bar. My friend Val brought fruit to share, another friend, Alyssa, brought a delicious olive tapenade and my friend Julie brought juice boxes for the kids. There's barely any leftovers so you know the food was a hit! All the recipes are featured on my Pinterest board.

I had the big idea of hosting a frost-your-own-cookie station for the kids this year. Yesterday, I was kicking myself as I was knee-deep in sugar cookie and frosting making but today, I'm so happy I pulled it together. The kids had an absolute blast decorating their cookies. I loved watching each kid squirt piles of frosting on their cookie, dump boatloads of sprinkles on top, add a few M&Ms for good measure and shove the sloppy cookie right into their mouth. I looked over once and saw my girlfriend Julie's little boy squeezing frosting directly into his mouth. Head tipped back and all. Another time, my friend Suzanne's little girl was literally drinking the bowl of sprinkles like a cup. The kids had so much fun! I apologize to all my friends who's kids were jacked up on sugar highs this afternoon.

I used our three-season porch as the scene for the actual cookie swap. It works perfectly because it's just cool enough out there to keep the treats chilled and there's a door to close to keep the children at bay.

Tory eyeing all the Christmas treats

My very favorite photo of the day is this one -- someone's kiddo just couldn't resist taking a bite of the delicious cookies. As the party was winding down and I began to tidy up, I saw this perfectly-bitten Peanut Butter Blossom left on the tray. This photo makes me smile every time I look at it.

We attempted a group shot of all the kiddos at the party. This isn't all of them, of course. Some kids refused to be in the picture and others kept running away. I think this captures the essence of the party, all in one freeze-frame moment.

I may be sweeping up sprinkles for weeks, but it's all worth it. Another fun Christmas Cookie Swap in the books!

Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 1

My entire body is aching from exhaustion. Today's Christmas advent calendar called for "baking Christmas cookies" and baking I did. Whoo boy. It hurts to type I'm so tired ....

I'm hosting my annual Cookie Swap tomorrow and I had big ideas to have a frost-your-own-cookie table for all the kids coming to the party. I wanted the party to be so special - part of my determination to go above and beyond this Christmas - so I bought boatloads of ingredients and baked sugar cookie after sugar cookie today. I AM EXHAUSTED (have I said that already?) and weirdly, I'm super proud of the Tupperware containers sitting on my counter, bursting full of delicious cookies.

Part of my vision for the Christmas advent calendar is to do each activity together with Tory. But let's be honest, there's no way I could bake 12 dozen cookies with a toddler in the mix. I kept her occupied for some of the time by allowing her to taste cookies samples.

My sous chef approves of this recipe

Half way through baking, she demanded to be held and I spent the remainder of time kneading and rolling dough one-handed. Not easy. Therefore, that's why my kitchen looked like this when I finished. Yowza.

My saving grace in-laws, Janie and Jim, arrived just as I was finishing baking. Tory flocked to them and began to lead Grandma and Grandpa all over the house to show them our Christmas decorations. In the meantime, I raced to clean up the big mess I'd created. Janie and Jim played with Tory all afternoon so I could set up for the party tomorrow. I don't know what I did to deserve in-laws like those two, but I am forever grateful. I truly appreciate all their help with Tory.

In addition, Janie came armed with outdoor Christmas lights for my house and Jim volunteered to hang them for me! Seriously, aren't I lucky to have them? Now we have Christmas lights on our house and I'm so excited.

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I made 12 dozen sugar cookies today and I have two extra batches of dough in my refrigerator waiting to be made. I just didn't have the energy to create (and clean up) another floury mess. Later this week, Tory and I will make the rest of the cookies together. I'd like to let her decorate some herself - ones we won't be gifting to the neighbors or our friends and family coming to the party tomorrow.

Sugar cookies are my favorite Christmas cookie, and the best recipe is my mom's. I can (and will) eat 6 of them for breakfast when we go home for the holidays in a few weeks. I attempted to make a sugar cookie recipe I saw on Pinterest earlier this week, but the dough didn't turn out quite right. So when in doubt, stick to what you know. I dusted off my mom's recipe and my cookies turned out perfect.

Mom's Sugar Cookies
Make 2 1/2 dozen

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
2 3/4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream together sugar and butter using a mixer. Add eggs and baking powder. Add flour, one cup at a time. Bake 7-8 minutes.

**Don't forget to cut the dough into Christmas shapes BEFORE you bake them. I made that mistake once and all you get is a biscuit-looking cookie. Not the desired outcome.

All this effort in baking will pay off tomorrow when I have containers full of Christmas treats. My big day of Christmas baking is checked off the advent calendar list and now it's on to the next activity - sharing them all with our friends and family.