Kitchen Gadget Girl

In addition to Drop In & Decorate for the Ronald MacDonald House at Stanford, we also decorated cookies this holiday season and donated them to Little House, a resource for seniors in our community. This time, I invited some of our younger friends to participate, and along with my two kids, we decorated several dozen cut-out cookies for the Little House Holiday Tea.

A few tips when decorating cookies with kids:

• Make sure all the kids can work comfortably; for us, this meant covering the dining table with a huge holiday cloth and having the kids sit down. For younger kids, booster seats would make them more comfortable.
• If you have sprinkles and decorations in big containers, consider putting them into small dishes, so kids can pinch just what they need. That ought to avoid over-sprinkled cookies.
• Use cookie sheets as individual decorating areas for each kids. It will help contain rogue sprinkles and help with clean-up.
• Count on about 5-8 cookies per kid, depending on their attention span. We had 6 to 8-year-olds and this number was good for them.
• Make sure you have good snacks or lunch for the kids, otherwise you might find them snacking on the frosting and decorations (well, they might do that anyway!).

Again, I made a simple Cream Cheese Cutout Cookie, along with the accompanying frosting. Last time, I made Royal Icing; this time, since the cookies were going to be consumed that day, I made a frosting with butter and powdered sugar. Here are the recipes:

Cream Cheese Cutout Cookies

Makes 7 dozen cookies, or 3 dozen with the large Wilton Cookie Cutters

• 1 cup soft butter
• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

DO NOT DOUBLE IN STAND MIXER (unless you have a really powerful one!)

Beat butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add sugar, cream until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla and almond extract, beat well.

Combine flour and baking powder in small bowl, mix well. Add dry ingredients to cream cheese mixture; beat until well mixed.

Divide dough in half. Wrap each portion in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator at least 1.5 hours.

Preheat oven to 375F. Roll out dough, half at a time, to 1/8″ thickness on lightly floured surface. Cut out with cookie cutters and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Note: I have made these several weeks and advance and frozen them. Bring to room temperature before decorating.

Almond Frosting

In small bowl, beat 2 cups sifted powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons softened butter, and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract until smooth. For piping consistency, beat in 4-5 teaspoons milk. For spreading consistency, add a little more milk. Tint with food coloring or gel paste.

Original recipe from Treasury of Holiday Cookies.

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