Decorating Cookies

Yesterday, I made butter cookie dough and stashed it in the fridge as today's after school project.  We decorated to our little heart's content, in the most messy and disorganized way possible, and had a blast doing it.  The result was delicious tasting yet interesting looking cookie with sloppy, beautiful decorating.

Cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat butter and sugar til fluffy. Stir in vanilla extract. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating mixture after each egg addition. Add the flour and salt, mixing well. Wrap in plastic wrap and let chill in refrigerator 3 hours or overnight. On a sparsely floured counter or board, using a floured rolling pin, roll dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutter into Christmas shapes. Place each about 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees F. Allow to cool complete before decorating. Recipe makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp milk
2+ tsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Food coloring

Mix powdered sugar and milk until even consistency.  Add 2 tsp of corn syrup and vanilla extract and mix well.  Add more corn syrup until you reach an icing slightly thicker than desired.  Divide into separate bowls and add food coloring, which will thin the icing a bit.  I divided into thirds.  I left one white, and used 4 drops of red in one and 4 drops of green in the other.

Our cookies are fantastic, and I know they'll be even better tomorrow after the icing has sat for a bit. Yum!!