Danielle's Cream Cheese Cut-out Cookies

Total Time: 2 hrs 25 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 2 hrs 15 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (good quality pure extract is worth it!)
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder
• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons water, lukewarm

Recipe

• 1 cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar.
• 2 add the egg and vanilla, mix well.
• 3 switch beater hooks for dough hooks on your mixer.
• 4 stir baking power into flour then add to butter mixture. beat well until flour is incorporate. scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. take care not to over-mix.
• 5 divide dough into at least 4 balls and wrap with plastic wrap. chill in fridge for at least 2 hours. can also be frozen. allow to come to fridge temperature before rolling.
• 6 i like to make these on the thick side so the tang of the cream cheese can really be tasted. i roll mine just over 1/4" thick. cut out as many cookies as possible from the first "sheet" of dough. gather the scraps and put them back into the plastic wrap. reserve all scraps for rolling later after they chill again. put your cookies on a cookie sheet. i have never had a problem using an ungreased sheet. cookies will not spread so they can be placed very close together.
• 7 optional step: put the cookie sheet with your raw cookies into the fridge for about 3 minutes. this keeps the edges very crisp and square. they will not soften and round in the oven.
• 8 heat your oven to 350 degrees. bake first batch and set timer for 8 minutes. check at this point and see if they still look shiny. if so, add 1 more minute. should not take longer than 10 minutes.
• 9 let cookies cool and prepare icing. mix icing ingredients in a small bowl with a spoon. scrape the sides to incorporate all the sugar.
• 10 spread icing on cookies with an icing spatula or dip the tines of a serving fork into the icing and drizzle over the cookies. color and add crunch with decorating sugars.