Galletas de Mantequilla / Butter Cookies

My mom made the best butter cookies in the world. She use to make them when she was a cook for the El Paso Independent School system. The kids would devour them, but of course she always managed to bring a couple home for us. I still have her original notes and recipe well guarded. It's a simple recipe, only four ingredients. And it's so versatile I can't begin to describe all the ways my kids and I have made this recipe: the shapes, the colors and the flavors. For the holiday season, I would like to share with you this wonderful recipe. Your children will be able to make them easily with little help from you. Enjoy and know that's it's from the heart.

Galletas de Mantequilla
(Butter Cookies)

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
½ cup sugar
1-teaspoon vanilla
2 to 2½ cups flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla. Slowly, add flour and knead to combine well. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes for easier handling. Roll out a small portion of the dough between two pieces of wax paper to ¼ inch thickness. Dip cookie cutter in flour and cut out desired shapes. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes (middle of oven) at 325°. If desired, before chilling dough, add food coloring during the mixing process. Also, after cutting with cookie cutters, you may sprinkle shapes with colored decorating sugars. Makes about 1 ½ to 2 dozen, depending on size of shapes cut.

Butter Cookie Pecan Sandies
(makes about 3 dozen)

Prepare the Butter Cookie dough and add 1 cup chopped pecans. Roll into a log and refrigerate for 40 minutes. Slice into 1/4 inch rounds and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes and dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Thumb Print Cookies
(makes about 3 dozen)

With this recipe, you make roll 1 inch balls (after the dough has been in the refrigerator of 40 minutes). Have a cup of finely chopped pecans. Roll half of the 1-inch alls in the pecans, the others leave as is. Using your thumb, press an indentation in the middle of each cookie before baking in the oven. When you remove the cookies, allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then with a spoon, top each indentation of each cookie with jam or preserves. We used raspberry, cherry and apricot. Actually, we got carried away and even topped some of the cookies with a Hershey kiss.

Snowball Surprise
(makes about 3 dozen)

Here we took the same recipe but added 1/4 cup of cocoa. Allow the dough to rest in fridge for 40 minutes. Take a scant amount of the dough and flatten in your hand. Place an unwrapped piece of chocolate (like a Hershey kiss) and place in the middle of the dough. Wrap the chocolate piece with the dough and roll around in the palms of your hands to form a ball. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Then of course, there are the regular cookie cutouts. You can tint the dough with food coloring or use colored sugar sprinkles for the top. You can frost the baked cookies with homemade buttercream frosting. Use your imagination. Better yet, let the kids come up with their own unique cookie for the holiday.
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