'Tis the season to bake, cook and eat!  I love all the cooking and eating but not a big fan of the baking.  Exact measuring, sifting flour, and using 65 ingredients to get a dozen cookies to me doesn't seem worth all the trouble, hence why I love bakeries.  Bakeries have this baking thing down to a science so why try this at home. Anthony was insistent on making Santa cookies from scratch.  He has a true love of baking ever since starting Pre-K this year where they bake from scratch every Monday.  So I attempted to make sugar cookies.....yes from scratch.  I purchased a hand mixer so my hand doesn't fall off and to make my life easier. So I followed your tradional sugar cookie recipe but added my own twist and added a vanilla bean to the batter.  When it was time to make the icing of all the different colors I got a horrible flash back from Anthony's one year old birthday party. When Anthony turned one I purchased an Elmo cake.  Little did I know that this cake would haunt us for 3 days after and I would get several calls from parents complaining about there child's poop.  Apparently, there was so much food dye added to make the cake red that all the kids pooped turned red for several days after the party. So when I thought of icing for the cookies I started to get flashbacks of red poop.  So I found an all natural vegetable dye that are made with vegetable colorants at whole foods by India Tree http://indiatree.com.  The kit includes red, yellow and blue colorants that you can mix them together to make other colors.  I was also inclined to use alternative food dye since reading an article in Kiwi Magazine that talked about the harmful effects of artificial http://www.kiwimagonline.com/kiwiscoop/KiwiScoopOct07_archived.html  food dyes and how they may be linked to behavior issues such as hyperactivity issues.  Since this is my first time making sugar cookies and decorating I keep it simple and used white, red and green colors.  My two little helpers had a great time making and decorating the cookies.  The cookies taste a lot better than they look I let the kids decorate...okay I admit I decorated some myself pretty sad you can't tell the difference.  In the end, we all had a great time, the cookies were delicious and we used a healthier food colorant.  I will admit the colors are not as vibrant as a tradional food dye but, close second and they look more natural.  The cookies are for Santa and he appreciates all different kinds of cookies.  He may bring us something really special since we made them from scratch this year!  Sorry santa but I still love my bakeries....we will see next year!  

Cookie Dough

3 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

1 vanilla bean split with seeds removed

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cookie Icing

2 cups of powdered sugar

8 tablespoons of milk

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt

2. Beat sugar and butter with mixer until fully combined

3. Add egg, milk, vanilla seeds, and vanilla extract to butter mixture

4. Add flour to butter mixture until well combined

5. Wrap in wax paper and refreigerate for at least 2 hours

6. To make the Icing mix powered sugar, milk and combine with a mixer

7. Divide icing into three different equal container to make seperate colors

8. Add 8 drops each blue and yellow to make green icing and 8 drops of colorant to make red icing

9. Preheat oven 375 degrees

10. Roll out cookie dough and use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes

11. Bake for 7-9 minutes when cookies have cooled decorate with icing