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.

Drop In & Decorate Party {cookie decorating}

Last month my friend Bridget of Bake at 350 blog, invited bloggers to participate in a virtual Drop-In and Decorate, decorate Christmas cookies and donate them to a local charity.

Last Saturday we had our first (of 2) decorating parties as part of a volunteer effort called Drop in & Decorate. You can read my original post all about it here, and my post about baking 260 cookies here.

Pillsbury donated VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product so I used mine for flour and a local business, Bahrs Discount Foods was generous and donated many of the other supplies needed.



Sunshine and her friends had fun decorating! - they even sang Christmas carol's while they worked!



When they were finished decorating 115 cookies, they each got to eat one!

Our decorated cookies!


This batch was decorated and donated to A.L.I.V.E (domestic abuse support)
They wanted the cookies in bags of six, so we put them in large zip lock bags, and I made labels to put on each bag (if you are participating and would like to use my labels, you can download them here for free, they work with Avery Template labels 5163)

The girls did a fantastic job and said “It feels good to know that you’re giving back, maybe make someone smile.. and.... it was fun!.”


We will be having another decorating party this weekend for The Agape Food Pantry.

I've Been a Cookie Baking Fool!

If I seem a little "distant" as of late, it's because I feel like I'm being torn in every direction. Ahhh, the holidays!! LOL

Last week I managed to bake 260 cookies for the Drop In & Decorate event!. You can read all of the details about Drop In & Decorate in this post.

I have found not one, but two deserving charities in our community to donate too! Alive (Alternatives to Living in Violent Environments) and The Agape Food Pantry. Both wonderful organizations, and we can't wait to deliver our cookies to them in early December!

I followed Bridget's tips in this post, on how to freeze my cookies, and I have all 260 cookies in the freezer waiting to be decorated!! I think we are going to have 2 decorating parties. 260 is a lot to decorate at once, and find room to let them all dry. We also had a hard time coming up with one date that everyone could make, so two weekends solves BOTH issues!!

We will decorate half the cookies on the weekend of Dec 5th and deliver to one of the charities the following week. The other half we will decorate on Dec 12, and deliver the week of Dec 14th!

WHEW!!! I also need to squeeze in baking for my own family and gift giving!

Have you started any holiday baking yet?

I'd love to hear about what your baking!

I will post a recap of the pie party and prize winners in the next day or so!! There were SO many amazing recipes shared!!

Don't forget to join Bridget's Flavor of the Month Party on Nov 30th! This month's theme is "Traditions" - post your favorite family tradition recipe!

Liz of Hoosier Homemade will be posting cookie recipes every day for 12 Days, starting Dec 1 with a linky party for you to link up YOUR cookie recipes on Dec 13th! What fun!

_______________________________________________________________

**Don't forget to enter my current giveaway for a $50 Gift Card to ScanDigital! GREAT Christmas ideas there! and if you follow Lisa's Blog, you could win her fabulous Giveaway!**

Drop In & Decorate {Cookies=Smiles}

My friend Bridget of Bake at 350 brought this fabulous program to my attention!

The program is brilliant and fun: Bake a bunch of cookies, invite friends or family (or neighbors, or co-workers) to stop in and help decorate, then donate your cookies to a local food pantry, emergency shelter, senior center, lunch program, or other community agency. It’s a simple idea but can make a big impact as we know that cookies make people smile and feel happy. (You can read all about it at Drop In & Decorate)

So this year Bridget is having us ALL over to her house to decorate cookies!

YEAH BRIDGET!!!

LOL..... just kidding!

Obviously she can't have all over, but she IS having a

Bake at 350 virtual Drop In & Decorate event!

Click here to get all of the details on the virtual event at Bake at 350.

This year, Pillsbury is donating 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each off any Pillsbury product to be distributed (first come, first served while supply lasts) to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event. And Lydia says she'll include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton, to people who plan to host cookies-for-donation events.

Contact Lydia ( lydia AT ninecooks DOT com ) for information on free coupons and cookie cutters.

Visit The Perfect Pantry to find out more about Lydia and all that she does.

Do not think that you need to be a baker as Lydia will tell you that she is baking-challenged so anyone can do this. You can find a free guide with everything you need to know to host your own party.

Make and bake your cookies ahead of time, remember Bridget's guest post about freezing cookies here. Drop In & Decorate has a recipe for Royal Icing and how to's here. You can purchase meringue powder at Michaels with one of their 50% off coupons! Bridget also has tips on making Royal Icing ahead of time here.

And, most important: Have fun!

Decorating Cookies and Donating......Works for ME!