Shortbread cookies

As you can tell by the picture, I made these into adorable santa cookies as was pictured in the magazine (Best Holiday Cookies). For the sake of time, I'd suggest simply rolling these out to about 1/2" and bake. You can eat these unadorned because they taste great but you can also use the butter cream recipe in the Strawberries and Cream Cake to frost these and they will be great.

As far as the number of cookies this makes, once the dough is rolled out you can use any cookie cutter or simply cut it into any size squares you want. You are the master of your cookie size.

1 cup dairy free margarine at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 325. In your stand mixer, beat the margarine on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Then scrape the sides of the bowl and beat the sugar into the margarine until combined. Then scrape the sides again and beat in the milk and vanilla until combined. Reduce the speed to medium low and slowly beat in the flour until your mixer starts shaking (and looking like it can't take much more - this depends on the quality of your mixer but since I don't have a thousand dollar professional grade mixer and you probably don't as well, this dough is a little tough). Once you reach that point, use a spatula or wooden spoon to incorporate the rest of the flour.

Now you can roll out the dough to 1/2" and cut out the shapes you want. Bake them for about 12-15 minutes until the edges are very lightly browned. I would absolutely suggest you take these out a little early verses a little late because if these overcook, they will be dry, stiff, and horrible.

If you REALLY want to spend a long time making cookies and want to make the santa cookies, when you finish making the dough, remove 1 cup of dough and set aside and then with the remaining dough, work in red food coloring until it's the right shade of red. This will make 12 cookies so for each one, roll one 1" ball of red dough, five 1/2" balls of red dough, one 1" ball of regular colored dough and four 1/2" balls of regular dough. To put them together, flatten out the 1" red ball to about 1/2" thick and flatten the 1" regular colored dough ball to same thickness and attach. Attach four of the red 1/2" balls for legs and arms and then attach the four 1/2" balls of regular dough to those. Next, use the remaining 1/2" red ball to form into a little hat and attaching to the head. Finally, use mini chocolate chips for eyes and buttons and bake these for 12-15 minutes at 325 degrees. Once the cookies are cool, use butter cream to make the beard and hat decorations and use a red cinnamon candy for his nose.