Christmas Cookies

I only photographed the Christmas trees. The other cookies didn't really look like cookies any more ...

I got this recipe from all recipes

Cookies:
2 cups plain flour (or all purpose flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 165C (325F)

Sift all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

In a larger bowl cream the butter & sugar with an electric mixer on medium. Add the egg and vanilla. Beat until blended.

Slowly add the flour mixing on low. Or you could just fold the flour in with a spoon until just combined. Do not over mix.

Gather the dough into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place into the fridge for at least an hour until firm.

On a floured surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. With cookie cutters, cut the dough into desired shapes and place on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes (mine took about 20 minutes). Be careful not to brown them.

Place them on a cool flat surface.

Icing:
2 cups Icing Sugar
2 tablespoons softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
food colouring

Mix the everything except the food colouring together. You may need to add extra icing sugar.

Divide the mixture into three bowls and add a few drops of food colouring to each. I used red, green & yellow.

Place the icing mixture into ziplock bags. Cut a small section off one of the corners so that you can use it to pipe the icing onto the cookies more easily.

Decorate each cookie how you wish. We added smarties, jelly beans and other lollies.