Baking is one of my absolute favorite things to do around the holiday season. I always end up trying to make 70 different things, and it's my pride and joy to craft up the very best Christmas cookie platter that I can to bring over to my grandparents' house for dinner on Christmas day.

I was flipping through an old cookbook (Very Merry Cookie Party) I found the other day - and came across this recipe. I thought they were the perfect little festive cookies! The best part: no icing was involved to decorate - so it was very "fuss-free" and didn't require much skill to pull off at all. ;)

I altered the recipe from the book a little bit and here's what I came up with:

WHAT YOU NEED:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract (or, you could try peppermint extract!)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp red food coloring
decorating sugar / granulated / confectioners' sugar for finishing (optional)

(yields 24 cookies)

WHAT TO DO:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine butter and confectioners' sugar (2-3 minutes). Beat in egg, vanilla extract, and salt. Gradually add in flour until medium-firm dough comes together.

Split the dough in half and add red food coloring to one half.

Roll out 24 normal colored ropes of dough and 24 red colored ropes of dough. Each rope should be about 4 inches long (approximately 1 tsp of dough per rope).