Merry Christmas! And nothing says Christmas more than a plate of cookies ready for Santa to nibble at night when he comes to give the presents. Sadly my kids know already that Santa does not exist - so these cookies were for them to eat! And of course, the girls wanted to have fun ..... and we did have a lot of fun :)

The kids were involved in cutting out the cookie shapes and in the final frosting of the cookies. The recipe for the cookie and the frosting was taken from Allrecipes. I made these cookies last year also and they were a hit with the kids. But instead of the sugar icing I used last time around, I wanted to use a Royal Icing. I love the way colors come out in a royal icing and I wanted to try one of the recipes from Allrecipes again.

There were a couple of issues with this specific recipe for the icing - when we made the frosting, it looked like a lot but by the time we were ready to ice the cookies, the frosting had deflated a lot and had some air pockets had made the icing look grainy. But once we had mixed it around with a spoon, they frosting was looking smooth and shining again even though the volume seemed lesser than what I had whipped up in the first place.

But by the time this icing dried on the cookies, it looked beautiful - it dried very well and the colors got even brighter once they had dried. It was a lot of fun making the colorful patterns on the cookies, decorating each one with lots of colors and letting the contrast show through. The kids decorated some of their cookies with sprinkles and candy beads. Somewhere in between, all of us agreed ..... this was a lot of fun!

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets/cookie sheets lined with parchment.

3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

4 egg whites

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions

Beat egg whites in clean, large bowl with mixer at high speed until foamy (use only grade A clean, uncracked eggs). Gradually add sugar and lemon extract. Beat at high speed until thickened.

Add colors as desired and use a spatula to spread the icing or fill piping bags with the desired colors.

Spread the icing on the cookies only when the cookies have cooled completely.