Cutout Sugar Cookies

Christmas season, year thirteen. Forty-seven El Paso tamale orders. Twenty-five Anapra orders. Total: approximately three thousand tamales across both bakeries. The production is now a dual-city operation managed by Sofia from a laptop (she has a production dashboard that shows real-time tamale counts in both kitchens, which means she knows how many tamales have been made in Anapra before Lupita finishes making them, and the knowing-before-finishing is the technology of a twenty-year-old bakery manager who has turned Rosa's kitchen into a data-driven enterprise, and Rosa would not understand the data but would understand the enterprise, because enterprise was Rosa's word for "do more than you think you can.").

Nochebuena: seventeen people. The biggest yet. Every seat filled. Every plate served. Every person fed. Rosa's tamales on the table. Rosa's flan on the counter. Rosa's champurrado in every cup. And a new presence at the table: baby Alejandro, now three, eating his first whole tamale — unwrapping the corn husk himself, biting the masa, chewing the chile colorado pork, and saying, in the clear, confident voice of a three-year-old Gutierrez: "More." More. The word. Rosa's word. The Gutierrez word. The word that means: the bread is good, the family is good, the life is good, and more is the only response to good. More.

New Year's Eve: twelve grapes for 2028. The wishes now include: Camila's quinceañera concert (March 2028), Diego's sophomore year at UTEP, Isabella's continued baby-saving, Sofia's continued everything, the Anapra bakery's continued growth, Luis Jr.'s continued service, the grandchildren's continued existence, and — the twelfth grape — the cookbook. The cookbook I have been thinking about since Rosa died. The cookbook that will turn the notebook into a book, the handwriting into typesetting, the recipes into a legacy that can be held by anyone, not just the women in my kitchen. The cookbook is the next dream. The next grape. The next rising.

When Alejandro unwrapped that tamale by himself and said “More,” I knew the cookbook couldn’t wait any longer. Rosa’s notebook has her tamale recipes, her flan, her champurrado — but it also has this sugar cookie recipe, the one she’d roll out every December with whichever grandchild was old enough to hold a cookie cutter. If the twelfth grape is the cookbook, then these cutout sugar cookies are the first page — simple enough for a three-year-old to help shape, beautiful enough to sit on a Nochebuena table alongside three thousand tamales.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 8-10 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cream the butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing on low speed until just combined. Do not overmix.
Chill the dough. Divide the dough in half and shape each portion into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until firm enough to roll.
Roll and cut. Preheat oven to 375°F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disk of dough to about 1/4-inch thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and transfer to ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing cookies about 1 inch apart.
Bake. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the edges are just barely golden. Do not overbake — the centers may look slightly underset but will firm up as they cool.
Cool completely. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating with icing or sprinkles, if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cutout Sugar Cookies — The First Recipe for Rosa’s Cookbook