My church had a cookie walk today, and they were asking each church family to donate 6 dozen of their fanciest Christmas cookies. Since I love to bake, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to branch out and try some new Christmas cookies, I decided to take two trays home to fill with 12 dozen cookies. It was a lot of fun!
I helped set up for the cookie walk last night, and discovered that this is a huge thing in Sun Prairie. There were thousands and thousands of cookies, and the variety was amazing! The ladies were telling me that you have to get to there early and wait in line outside the door in order to get the best cookies. And last year they completely sold out in 45 minutes! I didn't get there this morning to see if for myself, because my cold came back and I wasn't feeling great. But I'm excited to hear at church tomorrow how much money was raised for the Sun Prairie Food Pantry.
Here's one of the new recipes that I tried. They're decent tasting sugar cookies, but mostly they're just super cute.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse Sugar Cookies
22 tbsp butter (2 sticks plus 6 tbsp), softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well until mixed. Gradually add flour, baking powder and salt.
Divide dough into four equal sections. Color one section green and one section red (Wilton gel food coloring gives the best vibrant color). Leave the remaining two sections white.
Roll out each section of dough into a 9 inch square. I did this by marking a 9 inch square on paper and taping it to the counter. Then I taped a large piece of waxed paper over it, dusted it with a little flour, and rolled the dough out on the waxed paper. I could see the marked square underneath. The only word of warning is to use only the bare minimum of flour; I used too much flour on the green dough, and it didn't stick together as well as the red dough.
Once the squares are rolled out, place one white dough square on top of one red dough square. Cut the dough into one 3" by 9" section and one 6" by 9" section. Using the waxed paper to get started, roll the dough into two 9" long logs (so roll the dough starting on the long side). Place in the refrigerator to cool for at least an hour or up to a day. Repeat with the remaining white and green dough.
Take the dough out of the fridge and cut into slices. I cut the larger (face) logs about 3/8" thick and the smaller (ear) logs a little less than 1/4" thick. Place one face piece on a cookie sheet, and use a doughnut hole cutter to cut two little football shapes out of the dough where the ears will go. Then place two ears in the holes, and press the dough together at the seams. I didn't use any water to seal the dough, and the ears mostly stuck okay. Because my face pieces were thicker, I used my hand to smush the face down a little, which I think helped the ears stick better. As expected, I didn't have quite enough ear pieces, but the plain swirl cookies are pretty, too.
Bake at 350F for about 9 minutes. Let cool on the pan for a minute before removing to a cooling rack. Don't let them cool too long on the pan, or the ears will want to break off!
