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Eggless Christmas Sugar Cookies

Eggless Christmas Sugar Cookies

“Santa will not leave you gifts if you do not leave milk and cookies for him!” This is a sentence parents tell their children very often on Christmas Eve, so we decided to really believe in this statement and make some quintessential Christmas cookies, sugar coated and Christmas themed! This whole  effort was done by the mischievous elf (my daughter) who has recently gotten into baking, and bakes whenever she has time in the holidays! Knowing that only eggless recipes will work in the house, she found this cool recipe on delish.com for cookies that she wanted to try out. And interestingly enough, I had bought a Kuhn Rikon Cookie Press that I thought I would use one day but had never gotten the chance. She was the one to try it out for the first time and the result was awesome!  If you don’t have a cookie press, it can be rolled into a dough and be made into different shapes using cookie cutter, but I recommend buying the cookie press if you plan on using it often. The effort required is significantly lesser than using a rolling pin.

The texture is crispy and crunchy on the outside because of the sugar, but a warm, chewy inside; when it bakes, it has the rich aroma of butter and sugar.

We hope Santa likes these delicious cookies in the shape of wreaths, candy canes, snowmen, and christmas trees, which are really a treat for the family. They’re colorful and delicious in taste, and my teenage daughter was so proud when she successfully charmed all our guests with her cookies! I am so glad that she is finding her love for cooking and baking; it reminds me of a comment a very close friend made: “cooking is love expressed at so many levels!” I guess this is the best Christmas present for me 🙂

Wishing you all a very Merry (late) Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Eggless Christmas Sugar Cookies

Recipe makes 30-40 sugar cookies

Time to make -20 min.

Time to bake -16 min.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 tbsp sour cream, or (1 tbsp heavy cream plus 1 tsp yogurt)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup soft butter, or 1 stick of unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp water
  • Sugar sprinkles (or any type of cookie decoration you would like. If you want to put icing on the cookies, bake them first and then decorate with icing and sprinkles.)

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Method

  • Mix the sugar and butter using a whisk blender  for 4-5 minutes, till the color of butter is two shades lighter, and the butter is also fluffy and soft.
  • Add vanilla essence and whisk for another two minutes.

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  • Sieve the all purpose flour, baking powder and salt together or dry mix all of them.

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  • Add the flour mix to the butter/sugar mix.
  • Gently combine the butter in o the flour.
  • Add upto two tbsp of water and bind into a dough, using your palm or using  a paddle mix of the food processor.

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  • If you want to roll the dough for using cookie cutters, wrap the dough in a plastic film and refrigerate for an hour.
  • We used the Kuhn Rikon cookie press which had Christmas shape inserts, which was much easier to use and make festive shapes.

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  • Insert the dough into the cookie press, and drop in cookies of the shapes of your choice.

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  • Sprinkle sugar sprinkles in different colors *(not if you are using icing and sprinkles, do that after you bake the cookies and skip this step.)
  • Pre heat the oven at 350 degrees F and line the parchment paper on a baking tray.
  • Bake for 6 min on the center level.
  • Shift the center to bottom level and flip the tray back to front and bake for another 6 minutes.
  • Increase the oven temp to 375 and bake for 5 more minutes, until the edges turn gold.
  • Remove the cookies from the oven on to a wire rack and cool completely.

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Tips

If using salted butter, omit the salt requirement. One can even use cream of milk in place of sour cream

Instinct Factor

One can also pour sugar in a plate and dab the cookies int he front and back with sugar, instead of sprinkling, as it can cause wastage,

Feel Factor
Eggless Christmas Sugar Cookies looked perfect,and tasted delicious with the perfect crunch of sugar and crispiness and the bite size of each cookie gave the flexibility of eating more than one, and not feeling guilty at all!. The real christmas present for me by my daughter as we shared the kitchen space, passion for christmas and baking and enjoyed the bonding over baking treat! Colorful times with colorful memories with these highly inviting eggless christmas sugar cookies!!