Bake-Along #39: Brown Sugar Holiday Cookies (with special guest!)

Your classic sugar cookies with a sweet twist! For tips and to bake-along live, just follow along with the video.

Prep: 20 minutes

Chill: 2 hours - overnight

Temper: 30 minutes - 1 hour

Bake: 10 - 12 minutes

Brown Sugar Cookie Ingredients

Brown Sugar Cookie Dough:

1/2 cup light brown sugar*

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)**

2 eggs

1 t vanilla extract

1 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Easy Cookie Icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 t vanilla extract

1 t corn syrup

1 T heavy cream

Gel food coloring

Toppings:

Sprinkles and any other goodies!

Tools:

Stand mixer with paddle attachment or hand mixer

1. Cream together your butter and sugars until light, fluffy, and pale in color (this will take about 5 minutes on low speed). To see my creamed butter and sugars check out the 6:41 mark.

2. Add in your eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract. Scrape down the side of the bowl to ensure everything is well combined.

3. Whisk together your dry ingredients.

4. Add your dry ingredients to your butter mixture a few spoonfuls at a time.

5. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and give the dough one last beat or finish it off by hand to make sure everything is well incorporated.

6. Lay out plastic wrap and spoon the dough directly onto the plastic wrap, first covering it with the back of the plastic, pressing to remove air bubbles, then pull the sides of the plastic around, and finish with the front of the plastic wrap. Then wrap the entire piece in plastic wrap one more time. You should end up with a rectangle of dough. To watch this process head to the 9:37 mark.

7. Allow the dough to rest in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.***

8. Pull out of the refrigerator 30 minutes - 1 hour before rolling. Line sheet pans with parchment paper.

9. Roll out your dough to 2-3 mm thick and use cookie cutters dipped in flour to cut out shapes. Make sure you give each cookie a little bit of space as we do have baking powder in this dough.

10. Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

11. You can add sprinkles to the dough before baking (Cassia chose to do that with one of our sheet trays!) or you can wait until afterwards and use icing to stick sprinkles on. Baker's choice!

12. Bake for 10-12 minutes, turning once halfway through. The edges will be a very light golden brown and the cookies will be fairly pale. You can see our cookie sugar cookies at the 22:45 mark.

13. Whisk together your icing ingredients until smooth. Check out our icing consistency at the 22:08 mark. I used about 2 drops of gel food coloring per half recipe of icing.

14. Allow the cookies to cool fully before icing them. You can use a piping bag to pipe designs (Cassia and I kept it simple and dipped our cookies in the icing! I use a finger to swipe off any excess icing). The icing will take a few hours to set completely, but make sure you add sprinkles while the icing is still wet.

15. Eat immediately or keep at room temperature for 3-4 days -- and most importantly: enjoy!

16. Happy New Year!

Notes:

• *You can sub in dark brown sugar or granulated sugar (so you would have a total of 1 cup granulated sugar in the dough)

• **Pull your butter out of the refrigerator hours in advance (I recommend overnight!)

• ***This dough freezes extremely well. Make sure you thaw it in the fridge overnight and then on the countertop before rolling.

• Cassia joins in at the 12:15 mark. And she's just the absolute best.