White Elephant Party Time (Classic Sugar Cookies)

I first made this simple sugar cookie with Blake around midnight on the Thursday before our annual Tennis Christmas Party for school. We originally had planned to make a decadent chocolate cookies and cream cake, but sadly the cake rose none but an inch (and that is with two cakes stacked!) tear. We went over the recipe multiple times and could not seem to find what went wrong. Now I was not in charge of the "dry" ingredients (hint the flour). . . and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. . .hah! But we had to think of something to make fast, something that was simple, and something where I already had all of the ingredients at home. So we came up with Christmas sugar cookies! I then saved half the dough and saved it for the following Saturday where I attended a White Elephant Christmas Party with my girl friends.

I just went all out and had fun with the rolled out sugar cookies! Since the recipe is so simple, easy, and quick to put together, I spent most of my time perfecting my little sugar men and Christmas trees. I also experimented with the colors by dying part of the dough red and green. From there I went a step further and dared to "tie die" a few of the men and stars. Now one may ask how can you cut out little men from sugar cookie dough, and I would respond saying who says gingerbread men cant be made with sugar? This is the perfect time of year to just go with it and have all the fun you want when baking in the Christmas spirit!

Ingredients:

one cup sugar

1 cup butter, softened

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

3 cups flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

.5 teaspoon salt

LETS COOK!

In large bowl, combine sugar, butter, milk, vanilla and egg with electric blender and blend well. Then, stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. If needed blend until all combined well. Chill dough for at least 30 min before use. Heat oven to 400 degrees f. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface with a lightly floured roller and roll to desired thickness. Now get creative and take out cookie cutters, sprinkles, and anything else to decorate and have fun with the cookies! If dying the cookie; separate part of the dough and add just a hint of food dye. lightly pound and roll dye into dough COMPLETLY before rolling colored dough out. When mixing two colors; put streaks of dye in separate parts of dough and roll in ball formation in palm before rolling out on the lightly floured surface. Put onto uncreased cookie sheet and bake for about 4 to 5 minutes. Immediately remove from rack. Serve and enjoy!