Paul's Christmas Cookies

Into a large bowl, measure all ingredients.
With mixer at low speed, beat ingredients until well blended, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula.
Shape dough into a ball; wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours until easy to handle.
When ready to bake cookies, remove some of the dough from refrigerator and pre-heat oven to 350°F.
Grease a large cookie sheet.
On a lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll one-third of the dough ¼-inch thick, keeping remaining dough refrigerated.
With floured 3-½-inch round fluted cookie cutter, or cookie cutter of choice, cut dough into rounds.
With a pancake turner, place rounds, 1-inch apart, on cookie sheet.
Place in pre-heated oven and bake cookies for 12 minutes or until lightly browned.
Remove from the oven and again with a pancake turner, remove cookies to wire racks to completely cool.
Repeat with leftover dough.
Once cookies have cooled, store cookies in tightly covered container.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the confectioners’sugar, Crisco, the 2 tbsp. milk and salt, on low speed, until combined: about 1minute.
Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Increase the speed to medium and beat until fluffy; about 3 minutes.
If the frosting is dry, add more milk, 1 tsp.at a time, until it is creamy but still holds peaks.
At this point, you can divide the frosting into smaller bowls and use food coloring to make decorative frosting.

You can dip the cookies into the icing or use squeeze bottles or piping bags f itted with piping tips; I usually use Wilton Piping Tip #4.
Decorate the cookies as desired.
If using the squeeze bottles or piping tips, outline the cookies with icing first, then fill in the middle.
If adding sprinkles on top of the icing, add them right after applying icing on the cookie.
Let the icing dry/set; it dries in 24 hours.
No need to cover the decorated cookies as you wait for the icing to set.
If it’s helpful, decorate the cookies directly on a baking sheet so you can place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator to help slightly speed up the icing setting.
Once the icing has dried, these cookies are great for gifting or for sending.
Cover and store decorated cookies for up to 5 days at room temperature or up to 10 days in the refrigerator.

The frosting recipe can be very easily doubled, tripled, etc.