Sweet Treats & Healthy Eats: Nordic Christmas Sugar Cookies

Welcome to part II you could say, of my sugar cookie extravaganza. I apparently don't think that one beautiful set for Christmas is enough, and have to do an entirely different set. Actually, that's not the reason at all; it's just that I had so many ideas and was able to narrow it down to 2, but unfortunately not any further. I just couldn't decide which I liked better: the Winter Wonderland theme or the ~~I'm not sure what to call this but let's go with~~ Nordic Christmas theme. Which one do YOU like better? Cast your votes now! My Winter Wonderland cookies can be seen here.

The 4 at the bottom, starting with the branch, then the pine cone, birch trees, and the pearly ornament were my absolute favourite of the whole batch.

As promised, here is the chocolate roll-out cookie dough that I promised to provide the other day when I posted the Winter Wonderland cookies. Let me just say, when I was handling this dough, I actually said out-loud "ooh this dough is just dreamy." Sean asked me "dreamy?" and I explained that it held together and rolled out like a dream. This was in comparison to the only other chocolate sugar cookie dough I've used before, which you can check out in my post on Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies. While that dough was crumbly and a bit of a pain to roll out, it really did taste fantastic in the end. This new recipe tasted good too, but I think perhaps I may have added a bit too much flour as they were harder than what I'm used to, and Sweet Sugar Belle described them as on the softer side. So I'm a bit disappointed they didn't turn out as I hoped, but I'll definitely be trying the recipe again in the future.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup cocoa
3 OR 3 1/2 cups flour

Directions:
Cream butter, shortening and sugar together in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment. Add eggs and vanilla, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add baking powder and salt, and mix again. Combine the cocoa powder until well blended. Add flour 1 cup at a time. If you are going to bake cookies right away, add 3 1/2 cups flour. If you are going to chill the dough, or wait for another few hours or even a couple days, stop at 3 cups.

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface, and cut out desired shapes. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 6 1/2- 7 1/2 minutes.

Source: Lila Loa

Because I'm on day 5 of my week long challenge (whooo!) I'm going to provide a quick re-cap of what I've done so far: