Holiday Sugar Cookie Sandwiches

[video_quote pvideo=”” video=”Ec1yZXrH” text=”Holiday Sugar Cookie Sandwiches”]

Surprise Santa with these delicious, easy holiday cookie recipes! Trust us, he’ll love to see them under the Christmas tree.

Holiday Sugar Cookie Sandwiches

Difficulty: Medium • 12 Servings • Total Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Ingredients:

Sugar cookies

• 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Buttercream

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp milk
• ½ cup peppermint candies, crushed

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, corn starch, and salt.
2. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. While mixing, add in eggs and vanilla extract. Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
3. Divide dough in half. Wrap half the dough in plastic and refrigerate. Divide the remaining dough into fifths. Use food coloring to color the dough red, light green, dark green, white, and brown (optionally, the brown dough could be colored with cocoa powder). Wrap each color of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.
4. Once the dough is firm, preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Roll out half the red dough and the light green dough into sheets. Slice into thin strips. Alternate the green and red dough into a striped pattern. Now, cut the dough in the other direction into strips of the same thickness. Stagger the strips so that a checker pattern is formed. Lightly pass a rolling pin over the dough so that everything sticks together. Use a cookie cutter to cut out mitten shapes.
5. Roll out the remaining red dough and half the white dough. Stack the red dough on top of the white and tightly roll the two up. Cut the roll into thin slices. It should look like peppermint candy!
6. Roll out the remaining colored dough as thinly as possible. Use cookie cutters to cut trees from the dark green dough, gingerbread men from the brown dough, and snowflakes from the white dough. Use a straw to cut circles out of the scraps of white and red dough.
7. Roll out the uncolored dough to a large sheet of about ¼ inch thickness. Arrange the cut out shapes on the dough. Place a sheet of parchment paper on top and pass a rolling pin over the dough to flatten and join everything together. Remove the parchment and cut the dough into cookies. Place on a nonstick baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes.
8. To make the buttercream: combine butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk in a stand mixer. Mix until smooth and fluffy. Dip a toothpick into red food coloring and use the toothpick to draw strips down the inside of a piping bag fitted with a round tip. Fill the bag with buttercream.
9. Once the cookies are baked and cooled, pipe a layer buttercream on the underside of a cookie and sandwich another cookie on top. Coat the exposed buttercream with crushed peppermint candies. Gift to your loved ones, or enjoy them yourself!