The holidays are upon us!  My favorite things about the holidays.. time off work to spend with friends & FAMILY, a bit of traveling, lots of delicious food, and making cookies!  This week, I tried out a new sugar cookie recipe, and made up my own icing recipe.  They turned out amazing & I can’t wait to share it with y’all.

Holiday Sugar Cookies

What you’ll need:

• 3/4 cup Golden Crisco (shortening)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

What to do:

1. Mix Crisco, sugar, eggs and vanilla in large bowl until light and creamy.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and add to creamed mixture, mixed until well blended.
3. Cover dough and chill for 1 hour for easy rolling. (optional but recommended)
4. Preheat oven to 375°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheets (or I use parchment paper). If the dough gets sticky, instead of adding too much flour, you can stick it back in the fridge or freezer for a bit.
5. Bake at 375°F for 8 to 10 minutes, or until edges are light brown. (Time will vary with cookie size.) Cool slightly, then move to cooling racks (these are like 3 for $8 at Walmart, and worth buying for sure).
6. Once they are completely cooled, decorate to your heart’s content with icing and sprinkles!

Homemade Sweet Icing

You can’t decorate homemade sugar cookies with store-bought icing.  Just don’t do it.  This takes 2 minutes to make, tops.

So usually I would make royal icing, which calls for meringue powder (basically a safer substitute for using raw egg whites).  But since I didn’t see it at my grocery store, I decided to do something else.  And then I didn’t have the right ingredients on hand for other recipes I found (like light corn syrup, almond extract, milk), so I improvised.. and after a little experimenting, it came out perfect 🙂  See below!

What you’ll need:

• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 4 tsp almond milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tsp honey

What to do:

1. Mix powdered sugar and almond milk.
2. Add the honey and vanilla extract.
3. If the icing is too thin, add more powdered sugar.  If too thick, add more almond milk.  The perfect consistency will harden in about 45 minutes time.  It’s best to keep it fairly thick, but spreadable.
4. Separate into different bowls if you would like to make different colors – add food coloring and mix
5. Use a spoon or knife to decorate cookies & add sprinkles!
6. In 30-45 minutes, the icing will harden and you should have no problem piling them into a container to share with friends and family!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!