Christmas Cookies: Grandma's Sugar Cookies

One of my earliest childhood Christmas memories are of helping my mom make Christmas cookies. It was an all day project in our house because she would make hundreds of cookies. Or at least that's what it seemed like to me. The reality of it was that she made around a hundred of her Christmas cookies. All of them were hand rolled, hand decorated, and always soft and fresh.

When I got older and could help her with more than the decorating, I asked her where she got the recipe for her cookies. They always came out soft, fluffy and yummy, like nothing else I'd had before. Other people made Christmas cookies from refrigerated dough, others made them from scratch, but none of them were like my mother's Christmas cookies.

She refused to tell me her recipe for years, but as I got older and she got older, she grew less able to do all the Christmas baking on her own, she finally relented and gave me the recipe. It was my grandmother's recipe for years, it was given to her by a lady that lived in the same apartment building that she did.

I found out that it's quite a simple and basic, but very finicky recipe for Sugar Cookies. It's not necessarily strictly for Christmas cookies like I always thought that it was. You can make the rolled Christmas cookies or you can leave out some of the flour for drop sugar cookies.

Grandma's Basic Sugar Cookies
2 Cups Sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Cup Shortening
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 Cups Buttermilk *or* Sour Milk
2 teaspoons baking soda
5 Cups Flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
Note: If you don't have buttermilk or sour milk, you can easily sour your milk with a teaspoon of vinegar.

Cream shortening, sugar and eggs then milk. Sift together all dry ingredients and incorporate slowly.
From here, you can simply drop them onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350º F until golden around the edges.

If you want rolled cookies to make Christmas cookies, you will need to add any where from 1 to 3 Cups more of flour until your dough is stiff. Chill for 2 hours, roll to your desired thickness, cut with a floured cutter, place them onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350º F until golden around the edges.