Spiral Cookies

When I was a kid Christmas was the one time of the year that my Mom made sugar cookies.  I loved slathering them in icing and sprinkling them with sprinkles and colored sugar.  The only thing better than decorating the cookies was eating the cookies.  These days I try to keep my cookies to a minimum (just because I try doesn't mean I succeed), but at Christmas time all bets are off and I become a cookie baking machine. 

I came across this recipe on AllRecipes.com a few years back and it is now the only sugar cookie recipe I use.  This recipe gives you a delicious, moist sugar cookie that holds it's shape amazingly well.  This time I've used them to make a sliced cookie but this dough also work extremely well for cookie cutter cookies!

Spiral Cookies (Makes approx. 2 dozen)
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1t vanilla
5 cups flour
2t baking powder
1t salt

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder and salt.  Slowly add flour mixture to wet ingredients one cup at a time, being sure to scrape down the bowl half way through.

Divide the dough in half and wrap one half in plastic wrap.  Add some green (or any other color) gel coloring to the other half of the dough and knead until the coloring is evenly distributed throughout the dough.  Wrap the colored dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate all dough for at least one hour.

Remove dough from the fridge and allow to warm up slightly.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the colored dough 1/4" thick in a square-ish shape.  Carefully set the dough aside and roll out the other half of the dough in the same way.  Layer the colored dough on top of the uncolored dough and gently roll over the dough to squish them together.

Starting at the edge closest to you, roll the dough into a log as tightly as possible.  If the dough isn't super tight, no worries, the spaces will fill in during baking.  Cut the log in half and wrap them in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate the logs for about an hour.  This will prevent the cookies from squishing when you slice them.

Unwrap the logs and slice them into 1" thick cookies.  If you want to jazz them up a but you can roll the cookies in crushed candy canes or sprinkles.  Lay the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 400° for 8 minutes or until they start to lightly brown.

When I was little Selby and I had a friend sleep over at our house and his Mom sent cookies with him.  The cookies were similar to these only they were square.  Ever since that day I have thought about those cookies, and 20 years is a long time!  I seem to remember the colored dough tasting different but I think that was just my little mind playing tricks on me.  I still think that colored dough tastes different (even though it doesn't) but I think it might actually just be the magic of Christmas!