Step 1

Preheat oven to 425F℉. Mix in order given, beating cream cheese and butter together well before adding sugars. Mix in remaining ingredients in order given. (A stand mixer makes this easy!) Chill 1-2 hours before rolling if time allows; if not add an extra ½ cup of flour to your dough.

Step 2

Roll out to about ¼ inch thick, and use extra flour when rolling to keep dough from sticking. I also recommend parchment paper or these silpat mats to keep your cookies from sticking to the baking sheets!

Step 3

Bake 5-7 minutes, until lightly browned at the edges. Cool completely before decorating.

Step 4

(When you’re ready to decorate, you have a lot of options! I prefer powdered sugar + water cookie icings. Not a royal icing fan - I get weirded out putting egg into icing I'm not going to cook. That said, I know many cookie decorators use Royal Icing – here's Alton Brown’s Royal Icing recipe if you'd rather use that!)

Step 5

Combine powdered sugar, water, and vanilla in a small bowl and beat with a whisk until well-combined and no lumps of powdered sugar remain.

Step 6

(Give the video a quick watch for reference; it's less than a minute long!) My favorite decorating method is to marble some food color into my icing and then dip my cookies! Dip into the icing holding as flat as possible, then hold up at an angle to allow excess frosting to run off. Place flat until icing has set and dried.

Step 7

You can also transfer icing to a small piping bag and drizzle to decorate.

Step 8

(If you'd rather pipe them with frosting, this is my favorite Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting.)

Step 9

Enjoy! Will keep 2-3 days well-wrapped at room temperature, up to 7 well-wrapped in the fridge.