Snowflake cookies

Merry Christmas everyone :)
I hope you enjoyed the holidays with your family and friends, with good food, drink, and lots of laughter.
You probably exchanged gifts with loved ones.
I baked my gifts :)
Many, many of them. I had so many snowflake cookies, that I did not know where to put them anymore. Thats why this will be a blog post with the most pictures you have ever seen.
They are just adorable, and it was to hard for me to resist.

For these light sugar cookies, I used recipe from Make bake celebrate. 

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Mix softened butter with sugar. Add an egg, and vanilla and beat a little bit longer. Start adding flour, and mix until you get nice, soft dough. 

Preheat oven to 350F/180C and line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Roll the dough between two peaces of parchment paper.

Cut out cookies. I used snowflake cookie cutters, but you can do any shape. Just dust them with the flour, so they dont stick to the cutter. Gather the leftover dough, kneed a bit, and repeat the process, until you use it up. Transfer snowflakes gently to the baking sheet, and freeze them for a few minutes. Bake them for 7 min if you want them really light, and a 1-2 min longer for golden color.

Cool them completely before you start decorating them with the royal icing.

Recipe for dark chocolate sugar cookies comes from Baking a moment. And for that cookie, you will need. 

1  1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

1/2 cups butter

1 tablespoon of oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch 

1 egg

1 teaspoons vanilla 

In large bowl, sift together flour and cocoa powder. Set aside. 

Cream the butter, oil, and sugar until fluffy and pale, about 5 min. beat in the egg and vanilla.

Add flour and mix until thoroughly combined. 

Roll the dough between two peaces of parchment paper. Cut shapes using the cutters of your choice, and place them on the cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake them for 10 min at 375F

Cool  completely before decorating. 

To decorate cookies, you will need royal icing.

Mix 250 gr of powder sugar with 1 egg white, and few drops of lemon juice. You can use pasterised egg whites.
It should have the consistency that is good for piping. If its to hard to pipe, you need to add few more drops of lemon juice. I used Wilton tip #2 , for these snowflakes. Make sure your icing is covered with wet cloth all the time, because it crusts easily. Decorate as desired. 

Let the icing set for at least one hour. 

Package them in cellophane bags for gifts, or use them as a decorations for Christmas tree :)