Company
2024 ByWater Staff Holiday Cookie Swap
by Elise Aiello on Dec 23, 2024
We love sharing our ByWater holiday traditions with you! One of our holiday traditions is a staff cookie swap where we bake and ship holiday treats to other team members for the holidays! Check out some delightful recipes our staff cooked up.
Recipes
Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing, Lisette
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or a little extra
1/2 teaspoon orange peel grated (or other flavorings, I used about 1 tbsp each of 4 different things and split the batch and it was all a little weak: maple syrup, chai latte powder, malted milk powder, orange)
2 cups flour sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions:
1. Cream butter, sugar, honey. (If I was doing a full batch of maple syrup I'd put it here)
2. Add egg and beat;3. Add vanilla and orange peel. (IF doing other flavors, sub the orange peel. I didn't put any of my non-vanilla in at this point)
4. Mix dry ingredients separate, then sift into butter/sugar mix. (If I was doing a full batch of any of the non-syrup flavors I'd put them in here)
5. Cover and chill for at least an hour (I mixed the flavors in here and split it to chill)
6. Roll into 1/8" thick sheet. Cut out shapes
7. Bake at 375 (350 for dark pans) for 8-12 minutes (watch closely, my malted milk ones cooked way faster, I probably rolled them too thin)
Royal Icing (Adapted from Sally's Baking)
Ingredients
4 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons meringue powder
9-10 tablespoons room temp water
food gel coloring
Vanilla flavoring
Directions
In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat all of the icing ingredients together on high speed for 5 minutes. When lifting the whisk up off the icing, the icing should drizzle down and smooth out within 5-10 seconds. If it’s too thick, add a little more water. (On particularly dry days, I use up to 12-14 Tablespoons water total.) If it’s too thin, add a little more sifted confectioners’ sugar.
Icing completely dries in about 2 hours at room temperature. If you’re layering royal icing onto cookies for specific designs and need it to set quickly, place cookies in the refrigerator to help speed it up.I mixed the colors as needed in small glass bowls for anything that didn't need to be super detailed, or used these icing bottles
Mike's "Gingersnaps"
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. diced crystallized ginger
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. groud black pepper
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup salted butter, softened
1 large egg
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
Directions
Preheat oven to 300° F.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, soda, salt, ground ginger, crystallized ginger, allspice, and pepper. Mix well with a wire whisk. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix sugar and butter with an electric mixer set at medium speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg and molasses, and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add the dry mixture and mix at low speed until just combined. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour--the dough will be less tack and easier to handle.
Form dough into balls 1 inch in diameter. Place onto ungreased cookie sheets, 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake 24-25 minutes. Use a spatula to immediately transfer cookies to a cool, flat surface.
More holiday cookie photos!
Happy Holidays from everyone at ByWater Solutions!
Read more by Elise Aiello