Several days after Christmas, I was on the hunt for a fun indoor activity that wasn't coloring on the walls, and I decided to finally bake the cutout dough we'd mixed a few days prior. I was going to make traditional American Buttercream frosting, but decided at the last minute to buy canned frosting instead. If you've ever eaten canned frosting, you may know that it can be overly sweet with a texture no one would describe as light and fluffy. So I was thrilled when I successfully made up my own "doctored" frosting recipe on the fly.
And while I can't speak for the more sophisticated palette, my two-year-old seems to be thrilled with my slapdash frosting, gleefully licking it off of each cookie faster than I could frost them. My mom, taste-testing my frosting on some animal crackers, informs me it's "not too bad." High praise indeed!
Not too bad! –Mom
I'm glad I approached the decorating as an activity, rather than thinking these would be attractive and giftable because with the exception of the few I set aside for just that purpose, these would certainly have failed the health inspection. Toddler germs notwithstanding, I realized I have absolutely never made cutout cookies on my own before. You know when you think you know how to do something, and then when you go to start, you realize you have no idea?
So, it was a learning experience, and the next batch should be a little more ... er, photogenic.
Cutouts with Hot Chocolate Frosting*
*toddler drool optional
You will need:
Ingredients
COOKIES
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1cu p unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
FROSTING:
One can white/vanilla frosting
One packet hot cocoa mix of choice
2/3 a stick of butter
Section 2: Directions
I used Alton Brown's recipe for the sugar cookies; I'm sharing an abbreviated version below, with my notes in italics. Full directions are available on the Food Network website.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. (For reasons I am still not clear on, I used the wire whisk attachment on my Kitchen Aid and the dough didn’t mix properly. If it even needs to be said, use the paddle attachment.) Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours. We refrigerated for 4 or 5 days as we slogged through the holiday-birthday chaos of late December; the dough might have gotten a bit dry and tough to roll out, so maybe don’t wait quite so long.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Sprinkle your working surface with powdered sugar. Remove one pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out the dough to 1/4-inch thick. Check underneath to make sure it is not sticking. Cut into desired shapes, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Nine minutes seemed to be just on the verge of too crispy when using my Nordicware nonstick pan, so consider the baking surface as well. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack.
Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
FOR THE FROSTING:
Using a hand mixer or the wire whisk attachment on a stand mixer, empty one canister of white or vanilla frosting into the mixing bowl of an electric mixer. Start beating some air into that sickly sweet blob.
When the frosting has smoothed out a bit, start adding small pieces of room-temperature butter. It's very important the butter be ready for whipping, because otherwise you will get butter chunks from mixing into the premade frosting. I used about 2/3 of a stick, but just add butter until the frosting starts looking fluffy and tastes less cloyingly sweet - you can customize to your preference.
Empty one packet of your favorite hot cocoa mix into the bowl and mix until fully incorporated. Again, this can be done to taste. I used Target's Salted Carmel Cocoa and it gave the frosting a nice, not too in-your-face flavor. You would probably get something similar using plain old cocoa powder, but where's the fun in that?
And there you have it! Traditional holiday cutouts fused with another holiday tradition: hot cocoa. (Feel free to enjoy with even more hot cocoa, I won't tell) Be sure to let me know if you try this recipe.
Readers, what's your best tip for fail-safe holiday cutout cookies? Leave a comment below and share your experiences.
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