BUTTER CUT OUT COOKIES - DEE DEE'S

Butter Cut Out Cookies - Dee Dee's image

Whether it's Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, Valentines or for a birthday these are the cookies we love the best. A good friend and I starting baking these in the early 70's. A mutual friend had shared her grandmothers family recipe with us. We continued baking when our daughters came along and now I bake these for...

Provided by Diane Atherton

Categories Cookies

Time 50m

Number Of Ingredients 20

Ingredients

1 lb butter, room temperature
2 c sugar
3 eggs
6 c self rising flour
1/4 tsp salt, optional (self rising flour already has salt in it)
1 tsp almond extract (or flavoring of your choice)
a few drops of anise oil, optional (i use this in christmas cookies)
FROSTING
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 box confectioners' sugar
1 tsp almond extract (or flavoring of your choice)
3 Tbsp milk
food colorings of your choice
GLAZE
1 c powdered sugar
1 plus Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp corn syrup
1/4 tsp almond extract (or flavoring of your choice)
food colorings of your choice
seedless raspberry jam (filling for a sandwich cookie)

Steps:

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy; add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. NOTE: If making Christmas Cookies add the Anise Oil.
2. Stir salt into flour; add to butter and sugar mixture 1 cup at a time. NOTE: This will be a stiff dough.
3. Place dough in freezer for 1/2 hour. This will make dough easier to work with.
4. Flour the surface you will be working on and flatten dough onto the floured surface; lightly dust top of dough. Roll out and cut into desired shapes.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 14 minutes. Do not over bake. Allow cookies to cool 5 minutes on cookie sheets before transferring to wire rack to finish cooling.
6. Directions for Frosting: Mix all ingredients together. Spread on cookies. NOTE: Add candy sprinkles if you like but keep in mind these cookies are very good with just the frosting.
7. Directions for Glaze: Place all ingredients, except the food coloring, into a medium sized bowl; whisk to combine. You want a thick syrup. Add more powdered sugar to thicken, and more milk to thin.
8. Add the food coloring, stir until well combined.
9. Pour the icing into a condiment bottle. Be sure to put the cap on to ensure it doesn't dry out.
10. Repeat steps for each additional color.
11. To decorate: cover cookie with glaze (your choice of color). For patterns and designs, pipe a different color onto the cookie while it is still wet, or pipe another color on, after it has dried (for 5 minutes). Choose technique depending on the look you perfer. NOTE: for a sandwich cookie, spread raspberry jam between cookies before decorating.