Chocolate Sugar Cookie Santa Mittens

I’m finally getting back on track with posting recipes after a busy holiday season. I probably should have posted these ones WAY before Christmas but I completely lost track of time. As always, I make up reasons to bake my days away and made these specifically for my brother’s grade 4 class as a treat to bring in for their Christmas party. The recipe is very simple, as is the design. The hardest part about any of these sugar cookies is really the amount of patience you have to let them dry properly between steps. It’s really come to my attention recently that patience is probably the only skill in life you need to get anywhere, or create absolutely anything. This is good practice. Enjoy!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

¾ cup of all-purpose flour

1/3 cup of cocoa powder

6 Tbsp of butter, unsalted and at room temperature

¾ cup of confectioners’ sugar

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, cocoa powder. In a larger bowl, or the stand mixer (my one true love!) beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy (a few minutes). Stir in the egg and vanilla on low speed until combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture until dough forms. Wrap it in plastic in the disk shapes, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Once the dough has chilled, roll it out on a floured surface OR between two layers of plastic wrap (this method is ingenious and practically mess proof!) Cut into desired shapes only once the dough has been rolled out to ¼” in thickness. Bake in a 325-degree oven for 10 minutes. Let cool on the rack for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

Source: Martha Stewart

For the Icing:

4 cups of confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp. meringue powder (this stuff is expensive, and I use it way too often!)
6 tbsp. water
Gel food coloring

1. Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer (or mix by hand) on medium speed, until the icing has a smooth and matte consistency, about 10 minutes.
2. Separate Icing into separate bowls for dying. Use gel food coloring to not alter the texture.
3. Once all the colors are created, divide the colors into two batches, one thick batch for the contour lines, and one thinner watered down batch for the filling. Place the contour icings into bags and pipe the outline onto cookies. Fill the cookies with the runnier icing until smooth. Let them dry 1-2 hours, or overnight.
4. Pipe detail onto cookies and let set 1-2 hours.
5. They are ready to eat or wrap into cute little cellophane gift bags!

Bon Appetit!