Rolled Sugar Cookies

I took on the task of making 30 sets of nativity scene sugar cookies for our church’s prep for Advent event – Messy Church. I had fun with all the shapes, but I must admit, a few of my camels had orthopedic problems with their knees, as the dough stretched a bit on the long leg. LOL. I used my old standby recipe that I have been using since I was a teenager (ahem, a few decades ago). I made 4 batches to make all the required cookies.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Soften the butter. In mixer bowl cream together the softened butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; beat well. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add to creamed mixture and beat until blended. Divide dough in half. Cover and chill about 1 hour.

On lightly floured surface, roll each half of dough in 1/8-inch thickness for thin crisp cookies, or 1/4-inch thickness for thick cookies. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake thin cookies in a 375F oven for 7 to 8 minutes; bake thick cookies for 10-12 minutes. Cool on cooling racks.

These are the cutters I bought for the job, but you can use any shape you want.

For the set I made at home, I used pearl dust in a drop of alcohol to make a shiny liquid to paint onto the cookies using a paintbrush. Something different.