Cookie Time At Grandma's! - Day 2

Does your family or friends have the tradition of swapping cookies at the holidays? The way it works is that each person bakes enough cookies to share a dozen or so with other participants. You bake the cookies; then get together to swap them out for others. That way, you have a bigger selection of cookies for holiday get-togethers.

Today's recipe is from The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook. By the folks at Good Housekeeping, this little book has contains 60 large-batch recipes to bake and share with others. Recipes include Lemon Cranberry Shortbread, Raspberry Linzer Thumbprints, Chocolate Crinkles and Coconut Macaroons, just to name a few. Like our other featured cookbooks, it is available at Grandma's Attic.

The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook is a small hard cover book with inside spiral bind for ease of page turning. As an added bonus, it also includes tips for hosting a swap and festive blank cards for sharing recipes.

Classic Sugar Cookies

6 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter (4 sticks), softened
3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt until blended. In separate large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat butter and sugar until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low; beat in eggs and vanilla until mixed, then beat in flour mixture just until blended, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula.

Divide dough in half, then divided each half into 4 equal pieces; flatten each into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll 1 piece of dough until slightly less than 1/4 inch thick; keep remaining dough refrigerated. With floured 3- to 4-inch cookie cutters, cut dough into as many cookies as possible; reserve trimmings. Place cookies 1 inch apart, on two ungreased large cookie sheets.

Bake until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes. With wide metal spatula, transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough and trimmings.