For as long as I can remember, my mom made cutout sugar cookies for Christmas. She never made them the rest of the year, so we kids looked forward to them every year. The recipe had been handed down to her from her mom so now it is over 100 years old and still treasured in our family. As the years passed and the family spread out to other states, mom would bake tirelessly at holiday time so she could mail boxes of cookies to each of us kids. Until she was well into her 80s she would send out hundreds of cookies every year. Mom always frosted the cookies and added sprinkles. She used a simple frosting of powdered sugar and milk adding just enough milk to make a thick frosting, plus a little food coloring.

Something I have always loved it how cookies look when decorated with royal icing. I am no artist, and I will never be a professional, but I love practicing. I took a couple of classes from https://www.bikerchiccupcakes.com/ and it was so fun! She is a great instructor and so very talented at decorating in royal icing as well as buttercream etc... When I have time, I like to bake mom's sugar cookies and practice my skills. My precious husband likes to help.

I have so many cookie cutters including the ones my mom used my whole childhood. The recipe calls for shortening. They are puffy, soft and delicious without being overly sweet. See the recipe below.

3 Cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1 1/4 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Shortening

3 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Cream shortening and sugar together until well mixed. Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each one. Add vanilla extract, then add dry ingredients until well mixed. Roll out or drop in spoons full on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes or until the top of the cookie just looks dry. Do not over bake.

Tips:

One thing that I do when rolling out cookies is to use powdered sugar instead of flour on my counter. The dough doesn't stick to the counter, but more importantly the dough does not become too dry or tough when rerolling.

If you don't want to use shortening, you can replace it with an equal amount of butter. You need to compensate for the extra water that butter contains by adding an extra 2 TBL of flour and 2 TBL of cornstarch.

If you decide to try royal icing it is easy to make. I use Wilton's meringue powder.

908g (2lb) powdered sugar

50g (6 Tbl) meringue powder

1 Tbl Vanilla Extract

3/4 Cup room temp water

Mix the vanilla extract and water together. Combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder in a large mixing bowl (or your stand mixer bowl). Start mixing on low for 1 minute. Add the water/extract while the mixer is still on low. Once all the ingredients are incorporated move to medium then high speed and mix for another 5 minutes. Add coloring as desired. Thin with additional water to your desired consistancy for frosting, piping etc..