Merry Christmas to all my friends who celebrate. On this joyous day, and throughout the new year, may your life be filled with an abundance of Joy and Happiness. My 247th recipe, "Eggless Cream Cheese Stained-glass Sugar Cookie", a Christmas day special.
I have so far never made so many baked goodies in my life. While I am an enthusiastic baker, I tend to bake only once in a while. However this time around I was determined to bake as much as I can during the Holiday season. I guess I officially kick started my holiday posts with a Gingerbread house sometime in late November. After posting some delicious eggless cakes and cookies, during the last 1 month, I wanted to wrap up my holiday baking adventure with a fitting recipe. Christmas always reminds me of the colorful light decorations. Driving through neighborhoods, enjoying the array of dazzling colors, shining bright during the dark evenings is my favorite pastime during these times. So I decided to make something that is just as colorful like the lights.
I was not at all a hard to choose making a stained-glass cookie. It is very easy to make, yet it looks like an piece of art with all the holiday colors. And once I settled my mind on the stained glass part, I was then not ready to make just a simple sugar cookie for the outer. Ever since I started using cream cheese as a cake icing, RK fell in love with it and asks me to include it as part of other recipes. I have a whole cooking book from Kraft with cream cheese recipes. So, instead of using a simple sugar cookie dough, I decided to make a cream cheese cookie.
My selection was vindicated as soon as I baked the first batch of the cookies. Unlike a regular sugar cookie, this cream cheese cookie is extra flavorful, aromatic and soft to bit into. If holidays are meant to be days, to spend time with your family, then this is the only cookie recipe you will ever need. The dough itself is foolproof and very easy to make. You can then have fun with your kids by letting them cut out the shapes for this cream cheese sugar cookie. To sum up, this cookie is both fun to make as well as fun to eat afterwards 🙂
Eggless Cream Cheese Stained-glass Sugar Cookie
Eggless Cream Cheese Stained-glass Sugar Cookie
Ingredients
- 1 pack Cream Cheese (softened, at room temperature)
- ¾ Cup Butter (softened, at room temperature)
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ Cups All purpose flour
- ½ tsp Baking soda
- Hard Candy - as needed (I used Jolly Ranchers Hard Candy)
Instructions
- First, add the cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Using a hand mixer / whisk, beat well until mixed and fluffy.
- Now, add the all purpose flour and baking soda to the mixture. Mix until it forms a dough. Do not over mix.
- Transfer the dough onto a plastic wrap. Cover the dough completely with the wrap, shape it into a rough ball. Refrigerate the dough for atleast 1 hr.
- While the dough is cooling, take the hard candies in a zip lock bag. Gently crush them with a hammer.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Then, pull out the dough from the refrigerator and place it onto a floured surface. Roll the dough into about ¼ inch thick sheet. You can also cut the dough into manageable sized balls and then roll one at a time.
- Using a large and a small cookie cutter, you can cut out the desired shapes.
- Transfer the cookies to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Fill the holes of the cookies with the crushed candy. Bake the cookies for 8 - 10 mins, until the are slightly golden on the edge. Pull out the cookies from the oven and leave them to cool on the baking sheet for 10 mins. Then transfer them to a cooling rack and cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container and enjoy.
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