During the Christmas holiday, Mother always made sugar cookies. I believe her recipe was passed down from Grandma Haynes. My brother and I contributed, first by helping sift the flour, and then taking her metal cookie cutters in the shape of a star, angel, Christmas tree, reindeer, candy cane, and Santa—firmly pressing them into the flattened dough. After Mom passed away, my daughter ended up with her well-used cutters.
The cookie characters were placed on greased baking pans and slid into a pre-heated oven, set at 350 degrees. Once they were golden brown and had cooled, icing and sprinkles were added. Mom made her own different-colored icings using food coloring from small bottles.
Jim and I were allowed to scrape the beaters and bowl clean of icing afterwards with our fingers. I’m sure we were instructed to make sure our hands were clean before starting, although that wasn’t one of my priorities early on.
My wife made the same sugar cookies for our kids when they were small, as well as baking enough treats to pass out to family and friends. I enjoyed driving her to these individuals’ houses, where she dropped them off in colorful cellophane-wrapped containers.
After Thanksgiving ended, I wanted sugar cookies for Christmas, but Joleen wasn’t up to baking any. Grabbing the bull by the horns, I decided it was finally time to do things myself. Our plastic cookie cutters were packed away, so a trip to Walmart was made for new ones, along with other ingredients.
The recipe I used is the same as Mom and Joleen went by, modified just a bit for personal taste. I needed all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, two sticks of butter, vanilla extract, C&H white sugar, and one egg.
With the flour sifted in our ancient hand-crank sifter, 2 ¾ cups of it were added to a bowl, along with one teaspoon of baking soda, a pinch of salt, ½ teaspoon of baking powder, one cup of softened butter, 1 ½ cups of sugar, the egg minus shell, and two teaspoons of rum extract flavoring. If you’re now wondering, I substituted rum at the last moment for vanilla, believing it’d liven things up a bit.
The recipe said that you’re supposed to mix some of these items in separate bowls before adding them all together, yet I saw no point in that. Mixing is mixing in my book. I’ve mixed enough paint over the years to know what works best. Starting out slow and then gradually increasing the speed of the beater, I could hear the motor straining, but all was good.
When the cookie dough was ready to go, it was placed on wax paper and then flattened, using a spray butter-lubricated, large plastic roller. Mom had a wooden one, but I believe my daughter inherited that as well.
Although I’ve never baked before and have no knowledge regarding the subject, I believe plastic is much better where rollers are concerned. My dough seemed to roll out much more smoothly and faster without sticking, unlike wood.
Once the Walmart cookie cutters did their job, the unbaked cookies were placed into our oven for approximately 10 minutes. After they reached the golden hue I was accustomed to seeing, the pans were taken out and allowed to cool for a few minutes. One by one, these still-warm Christmas cookies were put on a wire rack to thoroughly cool.
Rather than waste time mixing up homemade icing, I’d purchased beforehand, one can of Pillsbury white vanilla, holiday green, red, funfetti yellow, and chocolate. Sprinkles were tossed onto a select few, as we only had so many sprinkles left. Thankfully, those things have no expiration date, as who knows how old they were.
Taking a bite out of a chocolate reindeer, I have to say the taste was exquisite, much better than sugar cookies purchased from the grocery store, yet perhaps not as good as those Mom and Joleen made. I’m proud of my accomplishment.
With 48 cookies on hand and no one to give them to, a good number was placed in the freezer. We’ll be eating Christmas cookies come next Fourth of July. This being said, on top of that, there’s enough rum extract left for me to try making rum balls next holiday season.
Our late neighbor, Diane Vidas, always gave us delicious rum balls, peanut brittle, fudge, and more sugar cookies. I’ll never be able to replicate any of Diane’s recipes with her now gone.
Christmas, of course, is the celebration of Jesus’ birth. For me, it’s also a time to reflect back on such simple things as sugar cookies, and especially those people who made them.
I like to write junk... 