Christmas Vanilla Biscuits

Take a break from the Christmas madness by making Christmas Vanilla Biscuits! This sugar cookie is a classic vanilla cookie made for cutting shapes because it holds its shape perfectly when baking.

This special cookie recipe is made for cutting out shapes in this case, Christmas shapes. Most cookies spread until puffed up and not quite the shape you expected!

Prep: 25 mins
Cook: 10 mins
Servings: 40 cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg (55-60g / 1.9-2oz)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup caster/superfine sugar (granulated/ordinary white sugar ok too)
3 cups flour, plain/all-purpose
3/4 tsp salt
225g / 1 cup unsalted butter, softened (or use salt, skip the salt)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F (160°C fans). Line 2 pieces of bread with parchment paper.
Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy (1 minute on speed 5)
Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until completely combined.
Add flour, baking powder, and salt.
Begin mixing slowly, then whisk until the flour is incorporated -- it will be lumpy.
Sprinkle flour on a work surface, and scrape dough from the bowl. Pat together, then cut in half, then shape into two discs.
Roll out to 0.3 cm/ 1/8 inch (for thin, crunchy cookies) or 0.6 cm/ 1/4 inch (for thick, soft cookies), sprinkling flour under and over the dough so it doesn't stick.
Use cookie cutters to press out the shapes and use a knife or spatula to transfer the shapes to the prepared baking sheets. (Keep dough that doesn't fit in the oven in the fridge.)
Bake for 10 minutes, swapping trays halfway through (note 2), until the surface is pale golden and the edges begin to turn light golden.
Leave the cookies to cool completely on the trays (they will finish cooking on the trays).

Decoration options:

Icing - see Christmas cake recipe.
Melt the chocolate and then dip the surface into the chocolate.
Dotted with powdered sugar and decorated with silver balls
Sprinkle with powdered sugar
Serve plain! They are sweet vanilla cookies so they are great eaten as is!

Recipe notes:

The number of cookies depends on the size of the pieces and how thick the dough is. Fill 3 baking trays.
Swapping the trays halfway - this means that you place both trays in the oven so that one is in the middle of the oven and the other is below. Halfway through the baking time, switch them so the one below moves to the top rack, and the tray on top moves to the rack below. This ensures that they both bake evenly because the top rack bakes faster than the one below.
Source - Adapted from this sugar cookie recipe by Sugar, Spun, Run.
Storage - Keep in an airtight container for one week. After that, it's still completely edible and delicious but starting to dry to a touch (I guess... I might be a little picky when estimating the shelf life of food for the recipes I share!!). I would never call them stale, but they are better the first week.

Nutrition

Calories: 96cal (5%)Carbohydrates: 12g (4%)Protein: 1g (2%)Fat: 5g (8%)Saturated Fat: 3g (19%)Cholesterol: 16mg (5%)Sodium: 46mg (2%)Potassium: 20mg (1%)Fiber: 1g (4%)Sugar: 5g (6%)Vitamin A: 147IU (3%)Calcium: 7mg (1%)Iron: 1mg (6%)