Decorating some un-Christmas-y cookies

We baked and decorated some cookies one Saturday afternoon with the kids, which never fails to put me in that blissful Christmas mood. The only problem was, we don't own any Christmas cookie cutters...oops. I have plenty of other shapes, though, so we picked out what we wanted to use and went to town.

Natalia dropped off Noah to join us, which was an event in itself since he had been MIA with the chicken pox the last couple weeks, and was heading to the store with Adele. When I offered to watch Adele so Natalia could be a bit more productive in the store, she said yes! So we all got to hang out with Adele all on our own while we baked cookies (because we all know babies won't last long in your arms when their mom is around). When she got fussy, I was holding her and B had to take over the baking duties. It was actually perfect that way, because I got to see my husband being all domestic rolling out dough and such and see him engaging the kids and have some fun in the process. I just love that he's home on Saturdays all day looong...it's like a day that never ends because he's around for all of it. Every time I turn around, he's still there!

I don't use one of the traditional sugar cookie recipes that are out there because I just find those too sweet to stomach, especially topped with frosting and sprinkles. I use this Ukrainian cookie recipe, and they turn out sooo good:

1 cup sugar
2 sticks butter
2 eggs
4 tbs. sour cream
1tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vinegar
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl, then add eggs. Add sour cream and vanilla. Combine baking soda and vinegar in a spoon (or a tiny bowl) and add to mixture. It will fizz and bubble, so right when I add the baking soda to the vinegar, I stir it quickly with a second spoon to combine the two before the vinegar bubbles over and out of the spoon. Combine flour and salt and add to the sugar mixture.

Sprinkle your counter with a light coat of flour, dump your dough out onto it, coat your rolling pin in more flour, and roll out to your desired thickness. Cut your shapes out, place on a greased cookie sheet, and bake 12-14 minutes until golden.

Because I love homemade whipped cream so much, I made up a frosting recipe with it that I love and use on everything (cakes, cupcakes, cookies) and that doesn't consist mostly of butter (yuck). It's basically this:

1 8 oz. package cream cheese (at room temperature--to avoid chunks)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup powdered sugar
dash of vanilla

Beat cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Add the whipping cream and beat until the mixer leaves swirls in the frosting and it's nice and thick (watch closely, because it is very easy to overbeat, and the whipping cream will get runny again). Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat.

If I need more frosting, I use 1 1/3 cups whipping cream and 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar with the package of cream cheese. If I want it even less sweet, I keep the powdered sugar at 1 cup. It's good with or without the vanilla, but I like it better with it.

These aren't the prettiest cookies you've ever seen, but trust me, they are delicious! I couldn't keep my hands off of them, and Natalia reported the same problem with the cookies I sent her home with.

A couple shots with my phone. Good thing I got a group shot and got Mila in there too.

xoxo,
Tanya