Decorating Christmas Cookies {Butter Cookie Recipe}

It's Recipe Day at the Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash and I thought I'd share my Butter Cookie recipe!

Be sure to head over to Simply Sweet Home for lots of great recipes!

Last weekend we had our second Drop In and Decorate Party!

These cookies were bagged in sixes and are being delivered this morning to

The Agape Food Pantry.

This time Hollywood and a couple of her friends came to help!!

I make our cut out cookies with a family favorite recipe from my sister-in-law (The Bug Man's sister)

Butter Cookies

print recipe here

2 Cup butter (NOT margarine - I use salted butter)
1-1/2 Cup sugar

2 eggs
4 Tbsp milk
3 tsp vanilla

6 Cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

• cream butter and sugar

• add egg, milk and vanilla.

• add baking powder, salt
  

• add flour one cup at a time, stopping to combine each cup
  

• form into 2 balls, chill at least 1 hour (If I leave it over night, I take it out of the fridge a good hour or so before rolling
  

• break into 3 pieces and roll out and cut

Bake at 400 for 5-8 mins (the large cookies I do for 9 mins)

Yields approx 30-35 large cookies or 60 smaller cookies

Royal Icing

print recipe here

I use Wilton's Meringue Powder, so I use the recipe that comes with it.

3 Tbsp Wilton Meringue Powder

1 pound (4 cups) SIFTED powdered sugar

6 Tbsp warm water

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 mins at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 mins at high speed with a hand-held mixer)

Makes 3 cups

One batch of icing is enough for one batch of the recipe I posted above.

Bridget of Bake at 350 has great tips for royal icing -

you can MUST read them here.

Click here to see all of my cookie related posts for more tips, tricks and pictures.

Want to know more about Drop In and Decorate? click here to see all of my previous posts

**EDITED TO SAY: Several people have asked me about the book you see laying on the table while we iced the cookies - we used it for inspiration, Wilton's Cookie Exchange - you can find it here

(Click this picture to see all of the pictures from our 1st weekend Drop In and Decorate Party.)

*you can click on TidyMom Recommends (up at the top )to find many of the baking supplies I use.

Be sure to link up at Simply Sweet Home your Christmas Recipe and leave a comment so you can be eligible for all the prizes being given away!

**Remember I'll be hosting Friday's theme Christmas Memories & Traditions!- get your posts up and ready to link up, I will try and have it up late this evening.

Holly Bloggy Christmas Bash

Monday Dec. 14
Homemade Gifts
hosted by Tater Tots and Jello
Tuesday Dec. 15
Christmas Trees
hosted by A Baby Changes Everything
Wednesday Dec. 16
Christmas Crafts
hosted by Blue Eyed Blessings
Thursday Dec. 17
Christmas Recipes
hosted by Simply Sweet Home
Friday Dec. 18
Christmas Memories & Traditions
hosted by ME! TidyMom

I'm am also participating in Tempt Your Tummy Tuesday, Dining With Debbie , Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and Tuesdays at the Table , Hoosier Homemade, Blissfully Domestic recipe exchanges. For more blogger recipes go to these links.