It's Hanukkah!

  

I am so happy with how our Hanukkah cookies turned out this year. I decided to do two different sugar cookies - vanilla and chocolate. Both recipes came from one of my favorite blogs - Sally's Baking Addiction. I used this Best Sugar Cookie recipe and this Chocolate Sugar Cookie recipe. For the chocolate sugar cookies I used this awesome Bensdorp Dutch-process cocoa that I picked up at the King Arthur Flour flagship store in Vermont over the summer (hopefully more about this in another delayed summer road trip post). My older kids (ages 5 & 7) were really able to help this year, which was a lot of fun. 

The key to sugar cookies is included within these recipes - don't make the dough too thin (1/4 inch is good), don't overbake - of course, who likes an overbaked cookie of any kind?! - and chill the dough after it is rolled out - this is key. 

I make my icing with powdered sugar (sifted), milk and vanilla or almond extract. Simple and delicious.