How many ways can you dress up a plain sugar cookie? We’re discovering that you can do so many different things with one simple recipe. To make these cookies you need to use your favorite sugar cookie recipe and then make an extra special icing, to use as filling or just as icing. For these cookies we used the Krusteez sugar cookie mix we purchased at Costco. Inspiration for this recipe was found at TheFoodNetwork.

Pomegranate Cranberry Sugar Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

1 recipe sugar cookie mix
6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon pomegranate cranberry juice
Small pink & white sugar hearts, for decorating

Equipment: 2 1/4-inch round cookie cutter, 1 1/2-by-1-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter

Directions

Prepare dough as directed on your recipe or package and chill for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle the table and rolling pin with confectioner’s sugar and roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick. Or put in a cookie sheet, or baking pan flat to cook a solid cookie.

If you try rolling out the dough follow these directions.

Move dough frequently to prevent it from sticking and add more confectioner’s sugar to the work surface and rolling pin as needed. With a 2 1/4-inch round cookie cutter, cut 72 dough rounds, re-rolling dough as needed. With a small heart-shaped cookie cutter (about 1 1/2-by-1-inch), cut hearts from the center of half the dough rounds. Place the rounds and cutouts about 1 inch apart on parchment -lined baking sheets. Bake until just set but not brown, about 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the pan slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the filling: In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, butter, confectioner’s sugar, and pomegranate juice until smooth and fluffy.

Spread about 1 teaspoon filling on each round cookie and top with a cut-out cookie.

Place a red candy heart in the center of each. Leftover filling can be used to sandwich the small hearts together. Or Sprinkle generously with heart sprinkles.

We don’t always end up with the same result but the taste of these cookies ended up being amazing. I don’t recommend eating the icing by itself but I do enjoy the end product no matter what it ends up looking like. YUM!