Elf Sugar Cookies
Servings: 10-12 cookies
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup salted butter, softened (you can use unsalted if you wish)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2-3 drops drop green & yellow food dye (I recommend gel)
Directions:
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Then set aside.
In a separate bowl (or in a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment) mix together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture and continue to mix until fully combined and smooth.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms. If it helps to combine this using your hands you can do that too!
Once you have a nice dough formed, remove about 3/4 cups of it to dye green. Dye about 2 Tbsp. of it yellow. Use gloves if you have them!
Roll out the rest of the non colored dough into a rectangle 1/4" thick. Let sit in the fridge while we work on making the elf hats!
Flatten the green dough into a long strip and roll it out to 1/4" thick. Let this strip of dough chill in the freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up.
After 15 minutes, cut out a 1/4" strip out of the green dough and fill it in with a thin, rolled out log of yellow dough. Use the video and pictures above to help guide you throughout this recipe!
Cut out a triangle with the yellow strip towards the bottom. Use this triangle as the base for measuring and cutting out the rest of your triangle hats.
Stack all of the hats on top of each other and gently press them together to form a long log of hats. To use up all of the dough, keep re rolling and forming the rectangle shape to continue to make more hats. Place the log of hats in the freezer to harden for 20 minutes.
Take the non colored, white dough out of the fridge and cut the edges. Don't throw away the white scraps. We will use these in the next step.
Once the hats are frozen solid, take the scraps of white dough and place them on either side of the hats as shown in the video above.
Place the hat log in the center of the white dough then wrap the rolled out dough around the trees. You can pinch the seams together to help the two sides meet. It helps to roll this entire log, with the hats on the inside, altogether to help shape and smooth everything out. Remember to refer to the video above for more visuals on how to create these cookies, this part can be a bit tricky.
Wrap the entire roll in plastic wrap again and let sit in the freezer while preheating the oven to 375°. While the oven is preheating, prepare a cookie sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Once the log has chilled, slice the log into about 1/4" thickness. Place each cookie about 1 1/2" - 2" apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the edges just barley look brown. We want these nice and soft so as soon as you see a bit of browning on the edges, take them out of the oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for an additional 10 minutes on the sheet to firm up a bit/ finish baking and cooling.
Enjoy! 🎄