This is my most cherished recipe. I remember my mom making these beautiful Santas and bringing them to my class when she was room mother and I always thought they were so beautiful and so good. The cookie cutter was made by “Aunt Chick” and it is still available through Gramma’s Cutters. The one I use I got from my Grandmother who may have gotten it as a present from my mom one year. It is red plastic and has a special indentation that helps you know where to decorate. The cookie cutter comes with instructions of how to decorate the Santa. Raisins cut in half and shaped in a half moon go into the dough before it’s baked. Egg white tinted red is brushed on his hat and sprinkled with good quality red sugar. His cheeks are painted with the egg white but not sugared and his lips are tinted with diluted red color with a paintbrush. I use royal icing on his pompom, hat rim, beard and moustache and let him dry a few hours before I stack them in a tin. He is a showstopper. I also make trees from this dough and paint them with green tinted egg white and sprinkled with green sugar then decorated with cinnamon red hots to look like ornament, and piped with white icing swags. And Stars painted with yellow egg white and yellow sugar. A double recipe makes 42 Santas and 51 trees. I usually make 1/3 or 1/4 recipe and that is plenty, about 10 Santas and 10 trees (unless you have children..in that case make more, kids love to make and eat the cutouts!)
Cut Out Cookies
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and extract. Add dry ingredients and mix only till blended
you want to handle it as little as possible once the flour is added to keep it tender. Make wax paper rolls and refrigerate 24 hours.
Roll on a lightly floured table. Cut out the shapes as close together as you can so that you don’t have to roll out the dough too many times (that makes the cookies tougher.) Bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees till lightly brown around the edges. Cool and decorate. I put raisin eyes on Santa before he bakes but the rest of the decorating I do after baking, even the sugars. I make a meringue slurry to paint on the cookie, colored with a little food color to hold the sugar. I use a simple butter, confectioners sugar & cream mixture to pipe on the beard and to make eyebrows and the fluff ball on the hat.