White Cutout Cookies

Twelve Days of Cookie Baking — Day 4

Create memories your families and friends will savor for years to come

Ann Jonas is sentimental about these cookies for many reasons. First of all, she remembers making them year after year with her seven sisters in the warm kitchen of their old two-story farmhouse near Farming, Minnesota. Christmas songs played on vinyl LPs while the eight girls and their mother, Marcelline (Marcy) Weidner Schleper, baked and frosted these white cutouts and their gingerbread counterparts.

When her own children were toddlers, Ann asked her mom for the recipe. Many more memories were made as she continued the baking tradition with her own family. Instead of only using the recipe at Christmas, Ann and her four children baked these time-honored cookies for a number of other holidays, too.

It was delightful to visit with Ann as she reminisced about the countless times that making these cookies brought together the special people in her life. Her reminiscing conjured up a passel of sweet images that I hope you can duplicate with your own loved ones over time. CJK

White Cutout Cookies

(Ann Jonas)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup sour cream

1 cup shortening*

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour, plus additional

1 tsp. baking powder

Mix baking soda and sour cream; set aside for a few minutes. Then, blend in sugar, shortening, eggs, salt and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder to the mixture and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Work with the dough in small batches, keeping the dough that you are not working with refrigerated. Flour your working surface, rolling pin and cookie cutters.

For each batch, add enough flour so that the dough is not sticky. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Place cookies on cool baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 6 to 8 minutes. (Cookies are done when lightly browned at the edges.)

Cool thoroughly on cooling racks. Decorate with Ann’s Vanilla Butter Frosting, which will also be posted today.

Yield: Approximately 4 dozen, depending upon the size of cookies

A note from Ann: *The original recipe called for vegetable shortening but I always use margarine. I’ve noticed other recipes use butter or a combination of shortening and butter so I think any of the three could be interchangeable in this recipe.

The cookies don’t bake for very long so you need to keep an eye on them.  I like them a little thicker — a little chewier — so I roll them out thicker and bake them for around 8 minutes.

I feel the sour cream in this recipe gives the cookies a rich flavor. My mom didn’t use store-bought sour cream when we baked them. She used the top milk — the cream that rose to the top of the separator — and left it in the refrigerator until it got sour. It was a process — she had to think ahead.

A note from Carol: Ann is the general book buyer for the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University and the book reviewer for The Visitor. She and her husband, Ron, are members of St. James Parish in Jacobs Prairie. Ann’s parents, Elmer and Marcy Schleper, were longtime members of St. Catherine Parish in Farming.

Ann Jonas’ son, Stephen, demonstrates the “fine art” of cutting out cookies in this

 1989 photo. (Photo courtesy of Ann Jonas)