Slice and Bake Sugar Cookies

Make your own slice and bake sugar cookies this Christmas!

I have always been a sucker for Pillsbury’s ready-to-bake sugar cookies with the little Easter bunnies, ghosts and Christmas trees imprinted in the middle. Although to be honest, I prefer them raw over baked (I’ve made it this far eating raw cookie dough and I have no intention of stopping).

It never really occurred to me to try and make these on my own. That is until I stumbled upon this lovely video from Pastry Living with Aya. She’s insanely talented and and came up with these beautiful little slice and bake cookies with wreaths, Santas and Santa boots right in the middle, and she made it look so easy! I know my way around a kitchen, but decorating is my week spot. But watching her step-by-step made me immediately want to run to the kitchen and try…which I did the following day.

They didn’t turn out as gorgeous as hers (I mean, she is an actual pastry chef). I only made the wreaths, and some of the decorations I used didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked in the oven, but I was really happy with the results. My family devoured them and they will definitely become part of my Christmas repertoire. 

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Prep Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Servings 50

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, softened
• 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk save white for egg wash
• 1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla extract
• 3 cups cake flour
• 3/4 cup almond flour
• green food coloring
• sprinkles and edible ball decorations
• 1 egg white mixed with 1 teaspoon water for egg wash

Instructions

 

• In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until fluffy. Mix in powdered sugar, salt, whole egg, egg yolk and extract. Sift in cake flour and almond flour and mix until just combined.
• Take about a third of the dough and dye it green (I used a combination of green, blue and black to get a nice, evergreen color).
• Take a portion of the remaining dough and form it into two logs, each about a half an inch in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for about 20 minutes.
• Remove dough from freezer. Using the tip of a butter knife, score the outside of the tubes lengthwise. Take the green dough, divide it in two, and wrap around frozen logs. Re-wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for an additional 20 minutes.
• Remove the tubes from the freezer and repeat scoring on the outside of the green portion. Divide the remaining dough into two portions, and wrap around the frozen logs, completely covering the frozen dough. Using your hands, roll until you have a round log. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze again for about an hour. (If you have a spare paper towel tube, you can stick the dough inside to help keep it round.)
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together egg white and water. Remove dough logs from freezer and brush with egg wash. Coat in sprinkles. Slice into half-inch rounds, decorate wreaths with edible sugar balls, and place on parchment or silat-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350 for 7 minutes, lower heat to 330 degrees and bake an additional 7 minutes or until edges begin to barely turn brown.
• Cool on wire rack.

Notes

This recipe was originally posted by Pastry Living with Aya.