.................. Cooking with Barry & Meta: King Arthur Iced Holiday Butter Cookies

This recipe comes from the bakers at King Arthur Flour. Buttery and tender with a professional looking glazed icing. These cookies also hold their shape after baking! On their site, they offer these tips to help sugar cookies hold their shape:

Be sure you're using King Arthur Flour brand all-purpose flour as it has a higher protein content than most other brands. This will help the cookies hold their shape.
Be sure to chill the dough after rolling out for 30 minutes before cutting your shapes.
Don't put cutout shapes onto a hot pan.

I always chill the dough and never put cookies on a hot pan. However, I’ve never used King Arthur Flour to make cookies. They are right – the higher protein content did indeed maintain the shape of the cookie. In the past, my snowflakes have puffed up and lost their shape but not so with this batch. I vow to use King Arthur Flour for sugar cookie making!

King Arthur Iced Holiday Butter Cookies Yield: about 5 dozen 2" cookies.

1 1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar

1 cup + 2 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature

1 large egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia, or flavor of your choice (I used vanilla)

2 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Icing

2 1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1 1/2 tablespoons, or up to 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon milk; enough to make a pourable/spreadable icing, or leave it thicker to pipe

Food coloring, optional

1 cup coarse (such as sanding) sugar or colored sugar for decorating, optional

To make the cookies: Combine the sugar, butter, egg yolk, salt, and flavor, beating until smooth.
Add the flour, mixing until smooth.The mixture will seem dry at first, but will suddenly come together. If it doesn't, dribble in a tablespoon of water.
Divide the dough in half, shape each half into a flattened disk, and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight.
When you're ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator, and let it soften for about 20 to 30 minutes, until it feels soft enough to roll. It should still feel cold, but shouldn't feel rock-hard.
Sprinkle your rolling surface with flour, and flour your rolling pin.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it 1/8" to 3/16" thick.
Use a cookie cutter to cut shapes.
Re-roll and cut the dough scraps.
Place the cookies on ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheets. They can be close together; they'll barely spread.
Bake the cookies in a preheated 350°F oven for 12 to 14 minutes, until they're set and barely browned around the edges.
Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool right on the pan. If you've used parchment, you can lift cookies and parchment off the pan, so you can continue to use the pan as the cookies cool.
Repeat with the remaining piece of dough, rolling, cutting, and baking cookies. When cookies are completely cool, ice and decorate.
Icing: Combine the sugar, milk, and corn syrup to make a soft, spreadable icing, adding more milk if necessary. Tint the icing with food color as desired

I used a food processor to mix the icing.
Spread icing on the cookies, using a knife, a spoon, or your finger to spread it all the way to the edges. Or, pipe on thicker version of the icing. I actually piped around the edge of the holly and then filled in the center with spreadable frosting.
Sprinkle with colored sugar or other sugar decorations, as desired. Allow the icing to harden before storing the cookies.

Iced sugar cookies were a part of our dessert bar at a holiday party.

Recipe without photos . . .