So I know it’s a bit late to be posting about New Year’s Eve parties, being January 14th and all. But I figure, better late than never, plus these cookies were too yummy not to share!

Now before I start this, I’ll preface by saying I hate making roll-out cookies. That shouldn’t be a problem, because I could just avoid making them. Sadly, I apparently suffer memory loss when it comes to making roll-out cookies, because I always forget how much I hate making them until I’m past the point of no return. However, since I made the cookies, I figured I might as well make them look great as well as taste great.

For the New Year’s Eve party, I made sugar cookies and decorated them to look like different New Year’s themes. I’m proud to say they came out looking great, even though the process was a little messy!

For the cookie recipe itself, you can use any sugar cookie recipe you have. I personally used a vanilla cookie recipe because I don’t like citrus-y sugar cookies.

Here’s my sugar cookie recipe:

• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter (room temp. or softened)
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside in a separate bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl (or by hand), and then add the eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly. Add the vanilla extract and mix. Then gradually add the flour mixture until the dough is well mixed. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for a couple hours to chill, or the freezer for a little while. Either way, make sure the dough is nice and cold, so that it’s easier to roll out.

When the dough is chilled, lightly flour a pastry board- or some large flat surface- and roll the dough out on it until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick.

Then, pick your favorite cookie cutters and cut out shapes, putting them on a baking sheet. Some recipes call for the sheet to be lined with parchment paper, but if you take the cookies off when they’re right out of the oven, it should be fine to leave it ungreased/unlined.

When all your shapes are cut out, make the dough scraps into a ball, and roll it out again. Andddd repeat. Over and over again. Until all the dough is used. This is the part I hate, because I’m not exactly the most patient person!

When all the cookies are rolled and put on the baking sheet, put them in the oven at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes. If you’re not using a convection oven, switch the cookie sheets to a different oven rack after 5 minutes so that they bake evenly.

Now comes the fun part- decorating!

I used royal icing to decorate my cookies, because it hardens nicely so you can stack the cookies without getting frosting everywhere, and they’re easy to hold. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 box confectioner’s sugar
• 2 large egg whites (if you’re making this recipe for anyone who can’t handle raw egg whites, use 5 tbsp meringue powder instead)
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (this is a back-up if your frosting isn’t getting stiff enough, it’s not entirely necessary otherwise)

Combine all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Start mixing on LOW speed, or else you’ll get powdered sugar all over you. After the sugar and eggs are combined, turn the mixer up to higher speeds and whip the heck out of it until it’s shiny and beginning to stiffen (not quite forming stiff peaks, but almost there). Then it’s ready to be put into pastry bags! If you don’t have one, you can just cut the corner off a Ziploc bag and use that as a decorating bag! And if you don’t have decorating tips, just make the hole in the bag teeny so that the frosting is controlled. I made blue, yellow, and white frosting, so I divided the batch of frosting into three bowls and colored them accordingly.

You can obviously decorate the cookies however you want, but I made some New Year’s balls, stars, and fireworks. I think they came out pretty well! Ps, the shimmer on the white balls is from “pearl dust”. I bought it at our local craft store, and it gives a nice sparkle to the frosting. Then I used blue sprinkles on the blue frosting to enhance the color.

The party was a huge success, and I’m proud to say the cookies were all gone by the end of the night! Roll-out cookies are tedious, but so yummy and worth it if you’re planning to share!