Ingredients
Confectioners' sugar 1 ¼ cups
Salted butter at room temperate 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons
One by large egg yolk
Salt ½ teaspoon
Vanilla essence or flavor of choice ¼ teaspoon
All purpose flour 2 ¾ cups
Icing for your cookies
Confectioner's sugar or if preferred glazing sugar
Light syrup 2 tablespoons
Milk enough to make pourable or spreadable icing 1 ½ tablespoon or up to 2 tablespoons
Optional you can add food coloring and 1 cup of coarse sugar for decorating
To make the cookies:
Start by mixing the sugar, butter, egg yolk, salt, and flavor, beating until combined and smooth. Add your flour, mixing until combined and smooth. The blend will seem dry at first, but will rapidly come together. If it does not, add in a tablespoon of water.
Divide your dough in ½, form each half into a firmed disk, and enclose in plastic. Place in your refrigerator for 2 hours, or overnight. When you are ready to start baking, take out the dough from the fridge, and let it alleviate for 30 minutes, until it feels firm enough to handle. It ought to feel cold, however should not feel rock-hard.
Dust your rolling surface with flour, and flour your rolling pin. Work with one piece of dough at a time; roll it 1/8″ to 3/16″ thick. Make use of your cookie cutter to cut shapes as required. Re-roll and cut the dough scraps. Put the cookies on ungreased baking tray. Place them close together, as they will not spread out while baking. Place the biscuits in a preheated 350°F oven for 14 minutes, until set and barely browned around the edges.
Remove cookies from oven, and cool right on baking tray or place on cooling racks. Imitate this process with the rest of your dough until all cookies baked. When cookies are finally cool, ice and garnish.
Icing: Combine the sugar, milk, and syrup to make a soft, smear able icing, adding more milk if needed. Color your icing with food color as desired.
Spread the icing on the cookies, using a spoon, knife, or your fingers if you like spreading it all the way to the edges. Sprinkle with sugar decorations, as desired. Allow the icing to become firm before storing the cookies.
