Minnesota Prairie Roots

I use new and vintage cookie cutters when making roll-out cookies for the holidays.

EVERY YEAR ABOUT THIS TIME, I pull out my tattered The Cook’s Special recipe book, published in 1973 by St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Vesta, and turn to page 75.

At the top of the page, highlighted by a star and “delicious!” penned by my second daughter, Miranda, is my favorite holiday roll-out cookie recipe, Cream Cheese Cookies.

These rank as the decadent version of sugar cookies. Three ounces of cream cheese add the extra flavor that puts these cookies over the top.

This is my mom’s recipe and as much a part of my annual childhood tradition as the Sunday School Christmas Eve program at St. John’s.

For my oldest brother, Doug, I doubt there was anything sweeter than covertly dipping into the freezer for a roll-out cookie or two prior to Christmas.

On Tuesday, my son and I baked a batch of Cream Cheese Cookies. As I flattened mounds of dough, then rolled the dough nearly paper thin, I thought back to those years on the farm when my brothers and sisters and I imprinted cookie cutters into flattened sheets of dough.

Then, many decades later, I began the same holiday tradition with my children, with my girls first and then their brother. Sometimes I wondered, like my mom probably wondered, why I made roll-out cookies. This was time-consuming, messy work with flour everywhere–dusting kids, countertops and the floor.

One year, Miranda stuck a red hot candy up her nose, sending me into panic mode.

Cookie-baking is much less eventful these days. Yet, it’s still memorable. As my 15-year-old son and I worked together Tuesday afternoon stamping out and sprinkling colored sugar atop cookies, I delighted in the sweetness of the moment, of my teenager with the flour-covered hands continuing a decades-old family tradition.

I typically roll the dough as thin as possible.

Cream Cheese Cookies

½ cup butter

½ cup shortening

3 ounces cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

½ tsp. vanilla

½ tsp. salt

2 ½ cups flour

Cream butter, shortening, softened cream cheese and sugar. Add egg yolk, vanilla and dry ingredients. Roll out very thin and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 degrees for 5- 7 minutes. If cookie dough is thicker, bake longer.

All you need is colored sugar to add a festive touch to these cookies. Frosting would simply overpower their buttery, creamy flavor. Plus, simple is easier.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling