That’s the way the holidays start…

And I can hear the song playing off of my parent’s record player as my Mom, sisters and I made sugar cookies every Christmas — ending with Goodie, Goodie, Yum, Yum, Yum… A not so typical holiday song from the 1950s — and ever so eclectic when being played on vinyl.

Will’s class at preschool is having a holiday party on Friday and is also baking for the holidays tomorrow as a ‘Tastes of Christmas’ theme, so we had to pull ourselves together to try to find the perfect, non-allergen sugar cookie recipe. Unfortunately, we aren’t quite there yet — although this attempt did leave us with some very yummy cookies, the dough is hard to work with.  So, here’s what where we are now with plans to be perfected by Valentine’s Day! Enjoy!

Please note that this is a 2 day project and will leave you at least 3 cookie sheets of cookies — the exact number depends on the cookies cutters that you decide to use.

Earth Balance Shortening – 1 Cup
Sugar – 2 Cups
Unsweetened Applesauce – 1 Cup
Vanilla Extract – 1 1/2 Teaspoons
Flour – 3 Cups + More for rolling out the dough.
Baking Powder – 1Teaspoon
Salt – 1/2 Teaspoon
Sprinkles or colored sugar for decorating

You will need: 2 mixing bowls; mixer; wire whisk; plastic wrap; rolling pin; parchment paper; cookie sheets; cookie cutters — get creative!

Using your mixer, combine the Earth Balance, Sugar, Applesauce and Vanilla until smooth. In the 2nd bowl, combine the Flour, Baking Powder and Salt and stir with the wire whisk. Add the flour mixture to the shortening combo and then mix on low until the dough is combined and somewhat solid — not too sticky. If you find that it is too sticky, start to add in a little more flour until the consistency allows you to make a dough ball.

Once you have your dough ball complete, wrap it in plastic wrap or place in a covered bowl and refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

12 hours later…. Preheat your oven to 375°. Take the chilled dough ball and start to roll it out on a floured surface. Again, if the dough starts to become sticky as it warms up, throw a little more flour on it to prevent it from sticking. Roll out the dough to approximately 1/4″ thickness and then start to cut out your cookies. Place each cookie onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and decorate as you see fit. Of course, you don’t have to garnish if you don’t want, but COME ON, what fun is that?

Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes or until the are a little golden — not too dark though as they become very hard when baked too long.

And the NOSH – Did Will eat it? But of COURSE! AND he’s super excited to bring some dough in to his class so that he can participate in making cookies with his friends…. We’ll supply him with some extra cookies too, just in case the dough finds its way into his tummy before the oven…..

In other news, Will’s Kitchen has added another site to our list of advertisers, A Vapid Blonde!! She’s a dear friend that write with hilarity and choice vocabulary… We wish she wrote more — maybe if everyone goes to her site, she’ll be inspired! GO THERE NOW! And for the repetition, we are also running ads over at http://sprocketink.com/ and http://www.minimunchers.com/ — if you have a website that you would like for us to advertise on, please let us know!