Share a New Recipe Tuesday - Christmas Cookies

A few Saturdays ago, our church had a cookie exchange event and I brought these 2 delightful cookies.

I thought I'd share one of the recipes with you all, and put it on here for keepsake. Here we go:


Swirled Sugar Cookie

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¨Preparation:

1. Measure the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl, mix and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and the sugar. Once smooth, add the eggs, vanilla and combine well.
3. Add the flour mixture to the butter / egg mixture a little at a time. Mix until the floor is well incorporated and dough is smooth.
4. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or wax paper and chill in the fridge for about 1 hour. Overnight is also fine. If you want to freeze the dough, you can do so at this stage.
5. Divide in tree equal pieces and place in three separate bowls.
6. Knead each color of food colouring into 2 of the dough. I made 1/3 green, 1/3 red, and left the other half as is. Chill the dough again.
7. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each ball of dough separately to about 1/4 inch thickness.
8. Using a pastry brush, brush a little water to the darker layer of dough. Roll he other coloured dough around the rolling pin and transfer it on top of the darker layer of dough. The little bit of water will help them stick together. Do the same with the lighter color dough.
9. Trim the edges so you end up with a neat and tidy rectangle. Save the scraps! You can still bake the scraps up into yummy cookies! They’ll just look ‘marbled’.
10. Gently start rolling your dough from one of the wider ends, brushing a wee bit of water on the dough as you roll it up. Once it’s rolled up, you can work the ‘log’ to even it out if the middle is thicker then the ends, and to work out any gaps.
11. Spill out some sprinkles onto the counter, brush the outside of the dough ‘log’ with a bit more water and roll it in the sprinkles. You gonna need a lot.  
12. Finally, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour. You could also freeze the dough at this point to bake at a later date.
13. Once chilled, slice the dough into rounds to your desired thickness. I like them a little over 1/4 inch thick. The thinner the blade used to slice them, the better. A thick blade will tend to squish the dough.
14. Bake in the centre of a preheated oven at 350 F for approximately 8 minutes (depending on the size and thickness). Here is the trick: As soon as the cookies no longer look ‘wet’ on the surface, they are done! 

Et voila! Pretty, swirly cookies!