My Husband’s Christmas Cookie Recipe
Over the years, every time around Christmas my husband has lamented about the Christmas cookie he used to make with his mom as a child. My husband brags about how great the Christmas cookie was. Year after year he has tried to recreate this Christmas cookie recipe. However, the dough never came out correctly for him. The dough would get stuck in the cookie press and made a huge mess of the kitchen. The cookie dough shapes of Christmas trees would look like a big blob.
One year my husband had some success with making little green and red Christmas cookie trees and camels. He used vegetable shortening as the original recipe calls for. However, my husband hates partially hydrogenated oils (PFOs). He prefers to use real butter when making cookies. I know we both have grown up with the can of shortening in the cupboard. Our moms used to use shortening in the recipe when baking cookies. However, we have tried use butter into our cookie recipes in order to be “healthier”. He originally tried to replace the shortening with equal amounts of butter in the Christmas cookie recipe. However, that made for a sticky cookie dough that would not form shapes or come out of the cookie press. My husband then tried adding more flour to the Christmas cookie recipe. However, this dough failed and was a very doughy.
This year we managed to increase the flour and sugar and still use butter for the recipe, and the dough came out great. I have to say this year I really enjoyed the subtle almond flavor of these sugar cookies. Finally, I was able to appreciate what he was talking about. The Christmas cookies have such a melt in your mouth flavor that they don’t need any extra frosting or sugar sprinkled on the top. However, if you decide to add some colored sugar on top. The sugar should be added while the cookies are still warm, so the sugar sticks to the cookie.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 large egg (room temperature)
- 2 2/3 cup sifted flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- For: 5 dozen cookies
- Preparation: 30 min
- Cooking: 12 min
- Ready in: 1 h 42 min
Instructions
- Cream butter, add sugar gradually.
- Add unbeaten egg gradually and sifted dry ingredients, flavoring. Optional add food coloring if desired. Mix well.
- Divide dough into 1/3 and use plastic wrap to roll into 1-inch logs.
- Refrigerate dough for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Remove one log at a time and slice into ¼ inch thickness.
- Place cookies on ungreased baking sheet, spacing at least 1 inch apart.
- Bake for 6 minutes, rotate tray 180 degrees then bake for another 6 minutes.
- Keep an eye on the cookies while in last 6-minute bake as they can go from done to over done quickly. The picture above and below is what the cookies look like when they are done.
- Remove from oven and let cool on sheet for 1-2 minutes, then place on wax paper to complete the cooling process.
- If you want to make them more festive for the holidays, you can add food coloring to make them red or green. This dough can be cut into shapes with cookie cutters if desired. What I like about this recipe is that it doesn't need all that extra to taste great.
- Per recipe
- Energy: 2689 kcal / 11240 kJ
- Fat: 188 g
- Protein: 43 g
- Carbs: 455 g
