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Silver bells

Time1 hour
YieldsMakes about 4 dozen cookies
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Holiday cookies can be divided into two categories. There are the picture-perfect cookies we see in the glossy magazines, the ones that make us oooh and ahhh over their dazzling designs and festive colors and look too pretty to eat.

Then there are your family’s favorite holiday cookies: They may not be Martha, but it just wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

This fall we asked readers of the L.A. Times Food section to tell us about those recipes for our first Holiday Cookie Bake-Off, and we asked the public to help us crowd-source their favorites.

More than 350 recipes were submitted online, and almost 80,000 votes were cast. We took the Top 50 vote getters to the folks at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, and students there baked them all off. L.A. Times Food editor Russ Parsons, deputy Food editor Betty Hallock and Times Test Kitchen manager Noelle Carter spent one Saturday morning tasting every single one along with Lachlan Sands, dean of Cordon Bleu, Rebecca Marrs, director of career services at Cordon Bleu, and Porsche Reid, a student.

Despite six different judges with 50 cookies to choose from, there was little debate about the top 10 favorites, which were subjected to another round of testing in the L.A. Times Test Kitchen and are presented here.

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1

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and one-half cup powdered sugar until light and smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla, and then the salt. Stir in the flour, a little at a time, until thoroughly mixed and smooth to form the dough.

3

Gather the dough and roll it to a thickness of one-fourth inch on a floured surface. Cut out cookie shapes from the dough.

4

Space the cookies about 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake until just browned on the bottom but still light on top, about 10 minutes. Cool briefly on the pan, and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

5

Make the glaze: In a medium bowl, stir together the remaining powdered sugar and vanilla extract with just enough water to reach the desired consistency. To color the glaze, divide the dough and tint with food coloring as desired.

6

Ice the cookies as desired.

Submitted by Holly Hall of Glendale.