Sunday

Mondays with Michelle: Holiday Cookies!

Welcome to Mondays with Michelle! With Christmas right around the corner, I thought today would be the perfect day to share my favorite holiday cookie recipe.

I grew up making these cookies every year with my Mom and Grandma and I still make them today. It is a traditional German Christmas cookie called, Butterplätzchen or Butter cookies. The dough is very simple to make and the actual creating and decorating of the cookies is very kid friendly, so get your kids involved too... I'm sure they will love to be your helpers!

(photo from www.gofeminin.de)

Butterplätzchen
(recipe from www.germanfoodguide.com)

Ingredients

2 1/4 sticks (250g) Unsalted Butter
2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
4 cups All Purpose Flour
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon (I typically use a tsp of lemon extract instead of cinnamon)
1 package Vanilla Sugar (sometimes you can find this in the international foods section of local grocery stores, if you can't find it, substitute 1tsp vanilla extract.)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Combine flour and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it is smooth. Add the sugar and vanilla sugar. Continue beating until the butter has absorbed the sugar and the mixture has lightened in color. Add one egg and continue beating until the egg has been completely absorbed. Add the second egg and beat until the second egg has been absorbed. Add the cinnamon and flour mixture and beat just until all the flour has been incorporated with the butter mixture and dough looks smooth. Form the dough into a loaf and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour.

Unwrap dough. Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces. You will be working with one piece at a time to prevent the dough from drying out. Keep the pieces not being worked on covered with plastic wrap. Sprinkle your work space with flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the first piece of dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Using cookie cutters, cut out cookie shapes. Place cookies on a greased (or parchment-paper lined) cookie sheet. Repeat these steps for the remaining dough pieces.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Allow them to cool completely. Decorate cookies with a glaze, icing, melted chocolate, or sprinkles.

I hope you love these cookies as much as I do! Happy Holidays to you and your families. See you back here in 2012 for more Monday's with Michelle! Don't to forget to checkout my Foodie Blog for more foodie fun.

Thanks for reading!