Christmas Star Sugar Cookies

The other day my husband, Brian, was talking about his best friends mom's sugar cookies and how she used the soft, creamy frosting and they were his favorite cookies growing up. He mentioned that I was always using the "hard" frosting, and while they looked pretty, they weren't as tasty as the soft frosting. Now I can't have my husband dreaming about someone elses cookies, or be shown up by some childhood cookie dream,  so for my Christmas cookie platter I decided to put the royal icing and fancy cookie decorating aside and use plain old frosting and sprinkles to top my Christmas star sugar cookies, all in hopes to win my husband back!

I think my plan worked, and I will admit I do love the soft frosting better than the royal icing, as far as taste goes, but there is no comparison with the decorating. It's impossible to decorate a cookie with non royal icing as well as with royal icing. Note the photos, my cookies have looked better. So you must choose. Taste or looks, and for a husband who prefers taste to looks I was glad I could make him a Christmas cookie that I hoped rivaled those of his childhood dreams.

Sugar Cookie Frosting
1 pound box powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heaving whipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Food coloring

(Add more cream to thin, or powdered sugar to thicken.)

Halloween Sugar Cookies

Just a quick post on my one attempt at Halloween baking. I am usually totally into the cookie decorating parties, but this year it was just me and I wanted to try out some new Martha Stewart cookie stencils I bought. I was so excited; I found them on sale at Michael’s at the beginning of October and couldn’t wait to use them. Instead of using cookie cutters to cut the cookies out in Halloween shapes, I used my biscuit cutter to make nice, round circles. I then frosted them and attempted to use the stencils to put cute witches, bats and spider webs on the cookies. But what happened was that the stencil would stick to the frosting and when I tried to pull it off the cookie and sprinkles would get messed up. If I didn’t put the stencil directly on the frosting then the picture wouldn’t come out. And if I waited for the frosting to dry, well, the sprinkles wouldn’t stick. It was quite the dilemma. In the end, I managed to get a few to turn out. But that didn’t really matter because the cookies still tasted great! I actually like them the best once the frosting has had time to dry. I have the best sugar cookie recipe. It’s my moms, of course, and I made the dough in less than 10 minutes. Let the dough sit in the fridge for about 30 minutes and then roll it out, cut and bake at 350, for about 8-10 minutes until the edges are just barely brown. I like these cookies soft, and when they get brown they turn crunchy.

It turns out that the pictures on the stencil package showed them being used on unfrosted cupcakes using powdered sugar or coco powder. Oh well, like I said, they still tasted great!

Sugar Cookies:
Mix- beat until light and fluffy:
2 sticks of Butter (2 cups)
3/4 Cup sugar

Beat in:
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Gradually add in:
2 1/2 C flour