4-Ingredient Italian Butter Christmas Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 1 stick (8 tbsp / 115g) unsalted butter, at room temperature 
• ½ cup (60g) powdered sugar
• 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature 
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Creaming the butter and sugar

1. To a medium mixing bowl, and the room temperature butter and the powdered sugar. You must use powdered sugar for this recipe. It contains corn starch which helps create the melt-in-your-mouth texture that makes these cookies so incredible.
2. Using an electric hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. At this point, if you want to add a little almond extract or vanilla extract, or some lemon or clementine zest, now is the time to do it.
3. Mix on low speed for a few minutes to incorporate air into the mixture. It should be soft and spreadable and have a whipped texture.

Incorporate the egg yolk

1. Now, incorporate the room temperature egg yolk. It’s important your egg yolk is at room temperature, otherwise the butter will seize up and you won’t be able to pipe the cookie dough properly.

Add the flour

1. Once the egg yolk is fully combined add in the flour and salt, Mix on low speed until the dough comes together. The dough should be pipeable, but if it seems too stiff, add 1 tablespoon of warm water and incorporate that to loosen the mixture. (Don’t add more water than that, otherwise your cookies won’t hold their shape as they bake.)

Transfer the mix to a piping bag 

1. Transfer the cookie mixture to a sturdy piping bag fitted with a large tip (I like to use a star tip). Make sure your piping bag is sturdy—you’re not piping whipped cream here! If it’s not, double up and put a second piping bag inside the first. You don’t want the bag to burst as you’re piping these cookies!

Prepare the baking sheet

1. Prepare your baking sheet by piping a small dollop of dough into each corner, and then place a piece of parchment paper, cut to size, onto the tray. Those dollops of dough will stop the parchment paper moving around as you’re piping the cookies.
2. If you want to make it easier to pipe your cookies evenly in the next step, you can draw 12 evenly spaced circles onto your parchment paper as a piping guide.

Pipe the cookies

1. Pipe the cookies into whatever shape you feel comfortable with. Try to be consistent with the shape and size. That’s not because they need to look perfect visually. It’s because we want all the cookies to bake evenly. If you have all different shapes and sizes of cookie on the baking sheet, that won’t happen! 
2. Depending on the size and shape of your cookies, this recipe should make about 20 cookies (or a few more).
3. If you want to add sprinkles or chopped nuts, now is the time to add those to the top of your cookies.

Preheat the oven, and chill the cookies

1. Now preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C). While the oven is preheating, put your tray of cookies into the freezer. They’ll set up pretty quickly because of the high butter content. If the tray won’t fit in your freezer, you can put them in the fridge (just be aware they’ll take longer to set). You want  the cookies to be rock hard before they go into the oven.

Bake the cookies

1. Bake the cookies for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. They willl turn a pale golden color when they’re ready to come out of the oven.
2. When they’re out of the oven, let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for at least 20 minutes to set up. If you don’t, they will fall apart when you lift them off the parchment paper.