Fun and functional sweets call us to the table.
Christmas is my favorite time to gather with family and friends, when everyone brings different dishes to contribute to the meal. I enjoy making festive treats the most because they’re appreciated by kids and adults, and making these sugar cookies with my daughter was a sweet memory. Not only are they sparkly and decorative, but also they can serve as a place card for each person at the table.
Ingredients for sugar cookie dough:
- 1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp roughly chopped anise seeds
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- Sanding sugar sprinkles for decorating
Ingredients for icing:
- 11 ½ tbsp of meringue powder
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp water
Directions:
- Use a mixer to beat butter and sugar until well mixed and fluffy.
- Add vanilla extract, egg and anise seeds and mix until combined.
- Add flour and salt until dough forms.
- Lay out 2 pieces of plastic wrap and put half of the dough onto each.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and roll out the dough onto a floured countertop or surface.
- Use your favorite cutters to shape your holiday cookies as place settings and put on a baking sheet. Save your leftover scrap dough just in case you need to make more! This dough will not expand.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly golden.
- Let the cookies cool completely on a wire rack before mixing all of the icing ingredients together.
- Put the icing into a Ziploc bag and cut a small hole in the corner of the bag. Ice the cookies by outlining the shapes first and then filling in the middle.
- Quickly sprinkle the sanding sugar while the icing is wet and let stand until the icing has set.
