Jell-O Butter Cookies
As a snack/dessert all on its own, Jell-O doesn’t do much for me. I’ve just never been much of a fan. I think that for me, it comes down to the texture. Because of the gelatin, it’s rubbery, and doesn’t have much of a ‘chew’ to it. It’s just…there. Hanging out in your mouth until you swallow it. Where’s the ‘experience’ in that?
Even after I had a tonsillectomy and could only eat soft, cold, texture-less things, I still never wanted Jell-O. I stuck to popsicles and ice cream. All of that to say, Jell-O isn’t an ingredient that’s usually in my house. But when I was putting together the recipes for this year’s 12 Days of Christmas, I found one from the folks at Springerle Joy that made me change my mind. Not for the sake of Jell-O itself, but as an ingredient for another treat.
Butter cookies are really as close to a perfect dessert as you can get. Like pound cake, they’re wonderful all on their own, but their simplicity allows for a variety of different flavors to be added to them that can really enhance their taste.
This recipe is for a standard butter cookie that tastes perfectly fine all on it’s own. But rather than spices, the powdered base of two different flavors of Jello gets kneaded into the dough. Isn’t that clever? I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it’s 100% the recipe developers at Springerle Joy who come up with all kinds of imaginative recipes for stamped cookies, which are a favored go-to of mine. As with most other butter cookies, they hold up VERY well to cookie cutters, stamps and designs after baking.
When it comes to flavors, the sky’s really the limit, isn’t it? I mean, it’s been around for so long that there must be dozens of flavors of Jell-O out there by now. I know that around the holiday season, there’s a cranberry flavor that gets sold in some locations. I could’t locate it where I live, so for my rendition, I used cherry and lime. I then added red and green coloring gel to give them an extra vivid pop of color. Feel free to use whichever flavors you’re partial to.
These were fun to make, and eat. If you’re the kind of person who always has a box of Jell-O in your pantry, maybe you want to give this recipe a whirl.
Day 1: Orange Cranberry Buns
Day 2: Sausage Bread Pudding & Cranberry Sauce
Day 3: Sugar & Spice Crackers
Day 4: Cranberry Cookie Tart
Day 5: Spicy Gingerbread Sticks
Day 6: Reindeer Munch
Day 7: Jell-O Butter Cookies
Ingredients Directions In a medium size bowl combine the flour with the salt and stir together with a fork. Set aside. In the bowl of a standing mixer or using a handheld one, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy. Add the egg, mixing just until combined and yellow disappears. Add the vanilla extract. Fold the flour-salt mixture into the butter mixture, mixing just until combined. Divide the dough into two sections. Sprinkle two Tablespoons of Jell-O powder onto each section and knead the dough until combined. You can add a few drops of food coloring gel to boost the color if desired. Wrap both doughs in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or at least for a few hours.Dust the surface of your counter and rolling pin with flour or powdered sugar and roll out the dough to a thickness of approx. 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch. (If your dough is too soft to work with, refrigerate it 15-30 minutes.) Dust the surface of your dough and your cookie mold with flour. Press the mold into the dough just far enough down to fill the mold cavity. Dust off any flour that appears on the impression. Place your cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill your cookie sheet full of molded cookies about 1/2 hour in the fridge. Take your cookie sheet out of the fridge and immediately place it on the center rack of a preheated 325 degree F (160 degree C) oven. Bake your cookies about 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Remove the cookies when the bottoms are just beginning to turn golden brown. (Note: no one oven is the same, & different baking sheets bake cookies differently. Keeping this in mind, I will ALWAYS test bake one cookie before baking entire sheets of the whole batch, just to get a good idea of how long they should be in the oven and if I need to adjust the way I’ve cut, rolled them out, etc. I highly recommend that you do the same.)Jell-O Butter Cookies
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