Christmas Star Cookies
No spread, soft vanilla sugar cookies cut in star shapes, frosted with fluffy peppermint buttercream.
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Equipment
- Food Processor
Ingredients
Cookies
- ½ recipe Vanilla Sugar Cookies
Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp meringue powder, optional
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp peppermint (not mint) extract, optional
Instructions
Cookies
- Prepare 1/2 Recipe Vanilla Sugar Cookie Dough, as instructed. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to an even thickness, just under 1/4 inch thick.
- Using star shaped cookie cutters, cut as many cookies as you can. Gather up the scraps, roll out the dough again, and continue cutting cookies, until you've used up all the dough. Depending on the size of your cutters, you may get 15-20 cookies.
- Line several baking sheets with parchment paper and place the cut cookies on the paper. Refrigerate the pans for 1 hour, or freeze for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes, until a very pale golden brown.
- Cool on the pan for several minutes, then gently transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
Frosting
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and meringue powder, and mix until combined. Add the extracts. Beat the buttercream for about 4-5 minutes on medium speed, until very light and fluffy, stopping to scrape the bowl down several times.
- Fit a piping bag with a coupler, and fill the bag halfway full with the buttercream. Use a variety of small star piping tips to pipe stars all over the cookies. I used tips 18, 32 and 199 to decorate my star shaped sugar cookies.
- Sprinkle the frosting with a little sparkling sugar, if desired.
- Note: Sugar cookies are delicate, and can break easily if picked up by the points. I advise picking them up by sliding a spatula underneath them to move them.
Notes
Store leftover frosted cookies in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
Unfrosted cookies can be frozen for up to 3-6 months.
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