Every year, I try to come up with *the* Santa cookie. The cookie that my son and any future children will fondly remember helping to whip up at Christmastime for Santa Claus. Plus, it's a bonus for Santa... maybe it'll be different enough from all your neighbors cookies to sway the big guy to change any potential names on the naughty list over to the nice list!
Start off with your favorite sugar cookie batter. I actually used a butter cookie recipe that I got from a friend, who got from another friend. It was shared very hush hush like over Facebook Messenger as opposed to on someone's wall for all to see, so I don't know if I have permission to share the recipe. But I digress....find one you like! After mixing up your batter, divide it into halves and color using food coloring. I read that using gel food coloring would produce brighter colors, but I just used the liquid food coloring I had leftover from Easter and I think it looked just fine! If you want to go a bit crazy, you could even add flavoring extract that would correspond to your dough colors- mint (green), vanilla (uncolored dough), etc...
Place dyed dough into the fridge for 10-15 minutes, then roll out to a thickness of 1/8 to 1/4 an inch. Brush water onto one side of the "outside" color of your cookie. Place other color over the top. I then lightly rolled the layered dough, trying to seal them together. Roll dough like you would cinnamon rolls.
I then cut off the raggedy edges to make my roll look neater.
The next step is to roll your cookie dough into jimmies (sprinkles). Note to self, use regular sized jimmies. I thought these circle ones were cute, but made it hard to slice cookies. Tightly wrap your roll with plastic wrap and stick back into the fridge for 10 minutes or so.
At this point, you have made your very own slice and bake dough! Remove wrap and slice off cookies about 1/4 inch thick. Bake according to your recipe! I was worried about the gaps in the roll, but most of them closed up while baking.
Ignore the yucky circle jimmies (the ones that actually stuck to the dough)! Yours will look better with regular jimmies. This picture looks very hypnotic!
I smushed all the leftover edges together, rolled out, and used to make traditional cookie shapes for our taste test.
I think Peanut enjoyed these more than the swirly cookies because of the funky coloring!
There you have it! Very easy to make and very easy to change up for different holidays. Pink and red for Valentine's Day? Green and white for St. Patrick's Day? Pastels for Easter? Double the recipe and make it a three layer red, white, and blue for Fourth of July? Purple and orange for Halloween? Your child's two favorite colors for their birthday? The possibilities are endless!
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