Brown Sugar and Spice Cookies

A loooong time ago, I mentioned I was doing a product review for CSN Stores. Well it took me some time to decide on a product, mainly because they have such a large selection of kitchen products, but I finally settled on this Calphalon Stainless Steel Stock Pot.

It ended up being good timing because I dropped my only stockpot (a different brand) on my kitchen floor, and it dented! I was very upset because the lid no longer fit, so that sort of made my product choice easy - must replace the stock pot! This is a great product! It's so heavy and lives up the quality you'd expect from a brand like Calphalon. I highly doubt this pot would dent should I drop it, although I'm trying to be much more careful in the kitchen :) Thank you so much CSN!

Now to the mittens . . .

Sometime in the last year or so I saw some super cute red mitten cookies. I couldn’t wait to make them for Christmas, and I actually ordered the cookie cutter this summer!

I had planned to make these mittens with Bridget’s Brown Sugar and Spice Cookies instead of my go-to sugar cookie recipe, and seeing them on Annie's Eats reaffirmed my plan.

These mittens were a lot of fun to make – and I was assisted by one of my favorite kitchen helpers, my sister Lisa. She came up with some very creative designs for the mittens, and she’s getting to be so talented with royal icing. I think it’s so fun to make these cookies, but it’s even better to make them with someone you love. Thanks for helping, Lisa! ☺

Several people have commented that they would like to learn how to do the royal icing. I have provided links to other blogs in the past, but would anyone benefit from me doing a photo-tutorial in the future? There are a lot of great tutorials on other blogs (like Marian's, Bridget's, and Annie's!) so I don’t want to do it unless it would be useful to my readers. Please let me know!

Brown Sugar and Spice Cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 sticks butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and spices; set aside.

2. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts, and mix until well-blended.

3. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom. (The dough will be quite thick...you may need to knead in stray bits of flour from the bottom of the bowl by hand.)

4. Roll on a floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 9 - 12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookie cutter.

5. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

6. To decorate these cookies, I used a thinned royal icing glaze to outline and immediately flood (red), let that dry overnight, then used lightly thinned icing to pipe designs, plus pearl balls.

Source: Bake at 350