Holiday Cream Cheese Cookies

Ok, I’ll admit these don’t have any traditional “holiday” flavors and the only reason these are holiday cookies is because I used red and green food coloring and holiday sprinkles.

So what?

It’s a busy time of the year! If a little food coloring and some sprinkles can help make something festive, just go with it and enjoy!

Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

1 cup + 6 T butter, softened to room temperature
2 t vanilla
6 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
½ t salt
2 cups powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
3 ½ cups flour

Icing

2 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 T milk
1 t vanilla
Red and green food coloring *
Holiday sprinkles*

Optional but c’mon… If it’s a different holiday, use different colors. If it’s, like, just a Tuesday – use whatever makes you happy.

Directions

For those keeping count, you’ll need one full 8 oz. package of cream cheese, 6 oz. of it for the cookies and two for the icing.

Ok, let’s get started! And of course we’ll start with the cookies

In a large bowl add the butter, vanilla, cream cheese and salt and beat until smooth.

Next, add in the sugar and egg yolk and beat again, again until smooth. Finally, add in the flour and beat again until well combined.

Cover the dough and refrigerate for an hour or so.

When you’re ready to bake, roll the dough into balls about the size of a ping pong ball and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, 6 to a sheet. Press down slightly with the palm of your hand to flatten and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until the cookies start to get a nice golden brown on the bottoms and sides. Let the cookies rest on the pan for a couple minutes then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool you can make the icing. Combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a bowl and mix until well combined. Here’s where you can freelance a little. What I did was separate the dough into two halves and add food coloring to each half. But if you want you don’t have to do any of that, just use the icing as is. But colorful is more fun.

Spread some wax paper on the counter. Dip the flat side of each cookie into the icing and place the cookie onto the paper. Add sprinkes. Repeat. FYI, if the icing starts to get too hard to dip into, just add a tiny bit more milk and stir that in until it loosens up a bit.