Holiday Sugar Cookie Cups Recipes

Steps:

• Heat oven to 375°F. Spray 36 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.
• In large bowl, mix cookie mix, softened butter and egg with spoon until soft dough forms. Stir in 1/4 cup candy sprinkles. Shape into 36 (1 1/4-inch) balls. Place in mini muffin cups. Press indentation in center of each with end of wooden spoon.
• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately repeat indentation into center of each cookie with end of clean wooden spoon to make 1-inch opening, cleaning off end with paper towel when needed. Cool in pan 20 minutes. Loosen edges with small knife if needed. Remove to cooling rack. Cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
• In small bowl, place half of the frosting. Tint red with food color. Place large piping bag fitted with medium star tip on its side. Using large icing spatula, spoon remaining vanilla frosting so it covers half of the length of side of piping bag. Carefully spoon red tinted frosting on top. Insert tip into indentation in each cookie cup. Squeeze bag to fill opening, and pipe about 2 heaping teaspoons per cookie cup. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons sprinkles. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese, and sugar.
• Beat in the egg yolk and extracts.
• In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda-gradually add to the creamed mixture.
• Divide into two equal portions and wrap well.
• Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
• Note; Refrigerating your dough and baking sheets is the secret to perfectly shaped cut-out cookies/ The cookies won't"spread" as they bake- in other words, the shapes will be well-defined/ The points on the stars will be sharp, etc/ Also, your dough will be much easier to work with and won't stick to your cookie cutters, so the extra chilling time is well worth it.
• When dough has chilled, remove one half from refrigerator.
• Preheat oven to 375°F.
• While oven is preheating, place cookie sheets in refigerator to chill.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to less than 1/4 inch thickness.
• Cut with 2 1/2 inch floured cookie cutters.
• Reserve trimmings for re-rolling.
• Remove cookie sheets from fridge (do not grease them) and place cookies on them, 1 inch apart.
• Bake at 375F for 8-10 minutes or until edges begin to brown.
• Cool for 2 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.
• Repeat with remaining portion of dough.
• Don't forget to put your cookie sheets back in the fridge once they have cooled/ They only need to chill for about 10 minutes.
• For your frosting, in a large bowl, beat confectioners' sugar, meringue powder, and water until stiff, about 5 minutes.
• Tint frosting with paste food colorings if desired.
• Keep tightly covered to prevent from drying out.
• Note; Of course you can use the regular food colorings you find in the supermarkets if you desire/ If you haven't tried the paste colorings, the colors are much more vivid than the regular food colorings/ Your X-mas trees will be much greener, Valentine hearts a brilliant red, etc/ Although they're somewhat pricier, a drop or two goes a long way.
• For detailed decorating, you can use decorating bags with small pointed tips/ You may need to thin frosting a bit to obtain right spreading or piping consistency.
• I sometimes collect pictures of decorated holiday cookies from my favorite magazines to give me some ideas.
• After decorating the cookies, set on wire racks to allow frosting to dry.
• Store in airtight, covered containers.
• Note: I am updating this recipe just to let you know about a little tip I just saw in a magazine. The person had cut out their cookies, placed them on baking sheets, and THEN refigerated them for about an hour before baking. You can do it this way also but I'd still chill your dough beforehand too, as it's easier to work with.

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in lemon peel and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Shape into three 10-in. rolls; wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until firm., Unwrap and cut into 1/4-in. slices. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks., In a large bowl, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, milk and food coloring until smooth; transfer to a resealable plastic bag; drizzle over cookies in the shape of a Christmas tree. Place one Red Hot at the top of each tree.