Eggnog cream cookies

It's the most wonderful time of the year...with these babies.  Portable eggnog!  Naturally, spiked with a little rum, as it should be.

I had a few quibbles with the recipe.  Right off the bat, I halved it, since the original yield of 5 dozen cookies was a little much to keep around the house.  The original recipe suggested chilling the dough for one hour and then rolling it out to an ⅛ inch thickness.  But rolling the dough warms it right back up, making it impossible to cut out the dough, and good luck to anyone who can get a good cut out of ⅛ inch thick dough.  I solved this by rolling out the dough between sheets of waxed paper to a "thin" thickness and freezing for 30 minutes.  Even with the "thicker" roll out, I still got 3 dozen cookies.  Finally, the suggested glaze was just too skimpy.  I ended up making a full batch of glaze to cover the half batch of cookies.  But all was forgiven as soon as the finished product came out.

Ingredients
Yield: 3 dozen cookies
(Recipe from Cook's Country)

• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼  teaspoon baking soda
• ¼  teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼  teaspoon table salt
• ¼  cup eggnog plus 2 additional tablespoons for glaze
• ½  large egg (1 ½ tablespoons beaten egg)
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 6 T granulated sugar
• 2 T packed light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon rum
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar

Method

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Combine eggnog and egg.  Because I halved the original recipe, I ended up with ½ an egg -- easy to deal with, just beat an egg and measure out 1 ½ tablespoons of liquid.

Beat the butter and sugars for three minutes until nice and fluffy.

Alternate the flour and eggnog in small batches.

Mix everything together.

Drop half the dough on to waxed paper.

Cover the dough with another sheet of waxed paper and roll out to ¼ inch thick.  Repeat with the second half of the dough on another sheet of waxed paper.

Stack the two dough roll outs on a cookie sheet and freeze for 30 minutes.

Peel the top sheet of waxed paper off the dough.  If it doesn't come off nicely, put back in the freezer for a few minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375° and get cutting out the dough.  Roll the scraps back together.  You may need to put them back in the freezer if the dough gets too warm.  The original recipe states not to re-roll more than once.  Don't tell them, but I re-rolled three times.

Place the cut out cookies on parchment lined baking sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.  Half way through, rotate the baking sheets back to front and top to bottom.

Take them out when the edges are lightly browned -- which means hardly browned at all.  For me, this happened exactly at the 8 minute mark.  Let them set on the cookie sheets for a few minutes.

Set the cookies on a cooling rack.  Place the cooling rack over waxed paper.

Now lets have some fun.  Taste test the eggnog and rum.  If you're sure it tastes OK, measure out 2 tablespoons eggnog and 1 tablespoon rum.

Add a cup of powdered sugar.

Whisk together to form the glaze.  Taste test just to make sure it's still OK.

Drizzle the glaze over the cookies.

And of course, taste test the finished product just to make sure it still tastes OK....