12 Days of Cookies - Day 12 - Holiday Sugar Cookies

When I started this project, I didn't expect that my 12 Days of Cookies would take 20 to finish. =)  But I'm very glad that I did it.  One of the best reasons is that I discovered a bunch of great blogs to read in the process. The bakers participating in this baking extravaganza are an amazing bunch.  I love reading about everyone else's experiences, good and bad.  It's been neat to compare results on the recipes that we have in common.  And reading some of the other posts definitely influenced my final list.  There are actually a few more that I had planned to bake, but I ran out of energy and substituted easier recipes instead.  I'll be sure to share them when I do get a chance to make them.

Now for cookie number 12!  As I mentioned in my last post, I ended up making a lot more cutout cookies than I ever would have thought--five of the twelve.  I was worried at first that these Holiday Sugar Cookies and the Christmas Cutout cookies would be too similar.  But they aren't.  While the Christmas Cutouts seemed kind of bland to me, these had a lot more flavor.  In addition to the usual suspects (butter, flour, salt, a bit of baking powder, an egg and some vanilla), the dough also has brown sugar instead of white as well as a bunch of nutmeg.  By this point, I'm pretty comfortable with the whole process for this sort of cookie--mix the dough, chill the dough, roll out the dough, cut shapes, chill cookies on the pan, bake.  I liked this dough because unlike some of the others, it didn't get rock hard when chilled, probably because of the brown sugar.  I thought it was pretty easy to work with, though I made sure I worked quickly, since most rollout doughs get soft pretty fast.

The verdict?  I really like these cookies.  I like nutmeg a lot, especially when freshly grated, so I really enjoyed the flavor of these.  The nutmeg paired nicely with the brown sugar.  I took the easy route in decorating, with a simple glaze (the same one I used on the Spice Rollout Cookies) and some colored sugar.  They're tasty plain as well, but more fun when dressed up a bit.  I still have a bunch of plain ones that need to be decorated, as well as some dough in the fridge, so I might finally try my hand at more fancy decorating, with royal icing.  We'll see.

I'm actually a little bit sad to be done.  But I've got a few more holiday cookies and other treats to make and blog about, so stay tuned.  I also realized that I missed acknowledging my 200th post, which was on Day 1.  And my blogiversary is coming up in just a few short days.  So I want to come up with some way to celebrate.  I'm really happy that achieved one of my goals with this whole project, which was to get excited about blogging again!

If you'd like to try these cookies for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up recently!  =)

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project