Colored Christmas Spice Cookies

Christmas baking has started! And what better way to start the festive food-month than to make Christmas cut-out cookies! As much as I love baking cut-out cookies, I'm never up for the hours of work that comes after when you need to ice them with royal icing. So, I came up with a easy, fun & quick way to still make cut-out cookies look cheerful; tinted cookie dough! And to make up for the lack of flavor without icing them; spiced cookie dough! Double cheer :D! I absolutely adore these cookies, they're so sweet (literally & figuratively). Rating: 4 out of 5.



Spice Cookie Dough: adapted from MarthaStewart.com
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- Liquid or gel-paste food coloring
Instructions:
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, ground cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and pepper and beat until combined. Once the flour is incorporated, add drops of liquid or gel-paste food coloring until you get the desired color. Mix thoroughly.
- Shape dough into 2 disks, and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Roll out 1 disk on a lightly floured piece of parchment to a ⅛- to ¼-inch thickness. Repeat with remaining disk. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Cut out desired shapes.
- Bake at 350 degrees until cookies are firm, 12 to 15 minutes.
- For sanding sugar cookies: Once cookies have cooled, warm up ¼ cup apricot jam in microwave until jam is runny. Brush cookie shapes with apricot jam using your fingers and sprinkle generously with sanding sugar.

Comments
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.