Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas everyone!

There are many desserts people make for the holidays (which makes it hard to choose from), so this year, I went with a few of the classics. I made decorated sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and peppermint rice krispy treats. I had a lot of fun making these festive treats especially because my little brother was helping me make and decorate the cookies.

The first dessert I made were sugar cookies that I decorated with an easy cookie glaze. These cookies are probably the easiest that I ever made. They only take a few ingredients and are also egg-less, so vegetarians can also enjoy them. For the cookie recipe look below the pictures. For the cookie glaze, just click on this link: Cookie Icing

The next thing I baked were gingerbread men. Out of all of the years of my baking (I have been baking since I was 6 years old), I  have never made gingerbread men! So this year, I added it to my holiday baking list. I got the recipe from a video on YouTube: Gingerbread Men Cookies. These Cookies were really good and crispy, but a little hard to work with because the dough was really sticky. To decorate them, I used the same cookie icing and red hots (spicy cinnamon candy decorations).

The last thing I made were peppermint rice krispy treats. They were easy to make and did not take a lot of time. All I did to make the peppermint flavor was putting  just a 1/2 teaspoon of pure peppermint extract. Then, to make them more festive, I dyed the melted marshmallow green and using my Christmas tree cookie cutter, I cut out little green Christmas trees. My brother thought they were not complete and sprinkled them with red, green, and white sprinkles.

On Christmas eve, my mom and I decorated several platters with the cookies and treats I made and gave to our neighbors , friends, and family!

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Sugar Cookies

Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients:

2 sticks of organic unsalted butter

1 cup of powdered sugar

2 cups of organic all purpose flour

½ tsp. of baking powder

1 ½ tsp. of pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1.Preheat your oven to 355 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat mat

2.With an electric mixer, beat butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy in a large sized bowl.

3.In another medium sized bowl sift the flour and baking powder.

4.Add the flour mixture a little bit at a time, beating well after each addition.

5.Finally add the vanilla extract and beat until all of the ingredients are well incorporated.

6.Divide dough into 2 portions and cover with plastic wrap. Then, refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

7.Take one portion of dough and roll it out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out shapes using desired cookie cutters.

8.Place cut outs on lined baking sheet and bake in pre-heated oven for 6-8 min. until lightly golden brown on edges.

9.Let cookies cool on cooling rack for 10 minutes and decorate if you want.

*Most of the ingredients I use are organic and it makes a difference in taste for the cake, but you may use non-organic ingredients if you prefer