Gold Medal Olympics Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies:
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
2 tablespoons cream cheese
¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2¾ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
Icing:
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
¼ cup milk
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
gold sanding sugar, for decorating
Directions
Add the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth. Add the egg and beat until fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in the vanilla. Gradually add the flour, and mix until just incorporated.
Gather the dough into a ball and divide in half. Flatten each ball into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and let chill for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
Heat oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove one disk from the refrigerator and place it between two sheets of parchment paper. Using a rolling pin, roll the disk ¼ inch thick (if the dough has been chilling overnight, it may need to thaw at room temperature for 10 minutes before being rolled out).
Using a 3-inch round cookie cutter (or the lid of a mason jar, which is 2 ¾ inches), cut rounds from the dough. If the dough scraps become too soft to re-roll out, chill them while you roll out the second disk. Place the unbaked cookies on the prepared baking sheet and freeze them for 10 minutes. Repeat process with the second disk of dough.
Remove the baking sheets from the freezer. Using a large straw, poke a hole into the top of each cookie. Bake until the bottoms of the cookies are lightly golden brown, rotating baking sheets halfway, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
Make the icing: In a medium bowl, stir together the confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Using the back of a spoon, glaze each cooled cookie with icing, then sprinkle with gold sanding sugar.
When the icing and sugar have set, thread ribbons through the holes in the cookies so that they resemble gold medals.
Yields: 24-30 cookies
