OK so these are supposed to look like snowmen, but they also kind of look like albino penguins, which is still adorable so I'm not too mad about it. Anyways, the inspiration for these cookies came from my mom, who used to make cream cheese cookies all the time when I was a kid. This particular dough has a unique texture unlike other cookies, making them soft and firm, almost like a sweet bread. The dough is also really easy to shape an manipulate, which is why I made these into the snowmen/penguin hybrid.
This recipe doesn't make a lot, because the cookies are pretty big, so if you're planning to make these for a crowd, go ahead and double the batch. There's not a lot of ingredients in this guy so it's incredibly simple to make! I've also made this dough into wreaths and candy canes, so the sky's the limit for how creative you can get!
Servings: 16-20
Prep Time: 20 min
Total Time: 40 min
INGREDIENTS:
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
Mini chocolate chips
Mini orange M&Ms
Red and Green food coloring
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla until combined.
Add flour and baking soda and mix well.
Shape dough into 32 balls - 16 of which are one inch in diameter and the other 16 are an inch and a half in diameter. You're essentially making the body of the snowmen and need one ball that'll be the body and the other smaller ball will be the head.
Using one small and one large ball for each snowman, place balls, slightly overlapping, on a cookie sheet that has been prepared with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. I used two cookie sheets, with 8 snowmen on each.
Flatten to about a 1/4 inch thickness. Dip your hands in powdered sugar if the dough is sticking to your fingers.
Reserve about 1/4 cup of the dough to be the puff ball at the end of the hat, then divide the rest of theleftover dough in two separate bowls and color with food dye - one red one green.
Shape red dough into hats with a small ball of white dough at the end as the puff, then shape green dough into scarfs.
Bake for 17-19 minutes. The edges should just barely be turning a light golden brown. Remove from oven.
While still hot, place mini chocolate chips, pointy side down, into the cookie as the eyes and buttons. Place an orange mini M&M on the face sideways to be the carrot nose.
Cool completely before serving!
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