RED VELVET SNOWFLAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING: Bake Cookies Day & Snowflake Day!

I'd never made Red Velvet Cookies before, so I was pleased to find this recipe in the holiday issue of Country Living Magazine. These cookies are perfect for today's two 'food' holidays: National Bake Cookies Day and National Snowflake Day! Lucky for me, I have lots of snowflake cookie cutters. Aren't these cookies darling? And the cream cheese icing is divine. Get baking!

According to CountryLiving: 

The first recipe for red velvet as we know it was published as a velvet cocoa cake around 1911. (Leavening agents interacting with the acidic cocoa create the reddish hue, though we now intensify it with food coloring.) 

New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel helped popularize the dessert in the 1930s, but it was the infamous armadillo groom’s cake in the 1989 movie Steel Magnolias that secured its spot as a Southern staple.

RED VELVET SNOWFLAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Ingredients 

For the cookies: 

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled 

1 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder 

1/4 tsp baking soda 

1/2 tsp kosher salt 

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature 

2 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature 

1 c. granulated sugar 

1 large egg yolk 

1 tsp distilled white vinegar 

1 tsp pure vanilla extract 

1/2 tsp red gel food coloring 

For the cream cheese icing: 

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature 

2 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature 

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract 

Pinch kosher salt 

2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar 

Step 1 

Make the cookies: 

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. 

Beat butter, cream cheese, and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in egg yolk, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. 

Reduce mixer speed to low, and gradually beat in flour mixture just until combined. 

Divide dough into 2 discs; wrap each in plastic wrap, and chill 2 hours. 

Step 2 

Preheat oven to 350°F. 

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

Working with one disc of dough at a time, roll between 2 sheets of parchment to 1/4-inch-thick. 

Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and place, at least 1 inch apart, on prepared baking sheets. 

Freeze 20 minutes. 

Bake, in batches, until set and dry to the touch, 8 to 10 minutes. 

Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

Step 3 

Make the cream cheese icing: 

Beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. 

Beat in vanilla and salt. 

Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. 

Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a small open piping tip. 

Pipe onto cooled cookies as desired.