FLOUR AND SUGAR AND BUTTER - oh my! - FLOUR AND SUGAR AND BUTTER - oh my!

Who knew that these three little ingredients rolled, cut and baked (for 20 long minutes) could be so yummy? And I haven't even frosted them yet.

According to my Cousin Kathy (from California) - this is Gr'ma Hinkhouse's Danish Cut Out Cookie recipe. I did have one problem with it I'm sure Kathy has never encountered. That being that my kitchen counter was cool enough that I had to occasionally work the dough (like play dough) to warm it up enough to make it roll out! (its winter in the mid-west you know!)

GRANDMA'S DANISH CUT OUT COOKIES

Mix 2 cups salted butter

with
1 1/4 cups sugar (granulated)

with
5 cups flour

(HINT: Be sure to put in FIVE cups of flour, not 6. Otherwise you have to get your husband or someone smarter than you, to figure out how much more salted butter and sugar to put in to make it work!)

Cream all ingredients together, roll out to 1/4" and cut into shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 20-25 minutes (I missed this part and started my Danish Cut Out Cookies WAY TOO LATE in the afternoon!), in 300 degree oven, til lightly golden brown.

(NOTE: After rolling and baking and all that jazz ... I found that rolling them out and cutting into a festive "SQUARE" shape works great. Later to make baking time less, I found that by making TRIANGLES out of the squares you could fit even more cookies ALL OVER the cookie sheet. This reduces baking time, and they actually taste just as good as the Christmas shapes!)

FROSTING:

1 box of powdered sugar (I still need to figure out how a box of powdered sugar figures when you buy it in a bag ... maybe tomorrow!)

Dash of salt (that's the 'reindeer' part ... on DASHer ... )

Little pour of vegetable oil for shine

Thin with milk to stiff consistency

Few drops of Almond Flavor

DECORATING (this is KATHY's description, not mine - because mine are all going to be probably white!)

Frost and sprinkle ... I don't know if you have Michael's there (the craft store) but I usually get a 5 container grouping of sprinkles ... red/white raw sugar, red, green and white little balls, red, white stars and wreaths ... for more sweetness ... or use colored sugars mixed by hand ... yellow for stars, blue for bells, green for trees, etc.

And for final kicks (I loved this you guys, thank you for sending the card and your current picture! - I hope you don't mind me sharing it with everyone!) -- this is Randy's youngest sister Stephanie and Steve!