Christmas Snickerdoodles

Merry Christmas! Every year it’s an Uy kids tradition to cut out shapes from Pillsbury sugar cookie dough and decorate them for Santa. Of course, as we get older, our creations and artistic designs get more beautiful. Art masterpieces worthy for the Louvre.

However, none of us like sugar cookies. Especially with that icing in a tub smeared on top. And it’s a shame to toss out such pretty cookies every year (foods have feelings too!). So this we we decided to try adapting my sister’s snickerdoodle recipe from Allrecipes.

While digging in the pantry, we found a pastry gun, a gift from my sister’s godmother ages ago. While Chef Sherbert used her gun to make these pretty cookies, Chef Hans and I were forced to hand shape ours since we couldn’t use cookie cutters on the stickier snickerdoodle dough (originally meant to be rolled into balls, not Christmas shapes).

Without cookie cutters, they were very ugly. Like, back to when we were 5 years olds making Christmas cookies ugly. Not Louvre worthy, but…more modern art, so we’ll submit these to the New York MoMA.

Chef Hans: God, is that a snowman you’re rolling out? It’s hideous.
Chef Uy: It’s avante garde!

Santa deserved the best though, so here are the wreaths, flowers, and Christmas trees from the pastry gun. Alas, this year we didn’t have time to decorate with icing, sprinkles, and chocolate chips.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup shortening (I use Crisco)
1 1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cup white sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Blend in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Shape dough by round spoonfuls into balls.

Mix the 2 tablespoons white sugar and cinnamon. Roll balls of dough into mixture and place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. With the palm of your hand, flatten them slightly; otherwise, you’ll end up with some undercooked cookies (we like crispy cookies).

Bake 8-10 minutes or until set. Remove immediately from baking sheets.