A Sand Tart by any other name

…wouldn’t be a Sand Tart.
However… all Sand Tarts are not the same, I have discovered. 
When our friend Tim G. gave us his mothers personal recipe
for Sand Tart cookies last year,  I think it was my favorite gift. 
This is definitely an heirloom cookie. 
It’s like no other recipe I have googled… and I did some googling because
I had never heard of “sand tarts” before….and OOOH MAN
the ones he brought over for us to sample were out of this world. 
What I found on the internet were recipes like this…

and they tend to look like this…

All, I’m sure, are delicious.  But none are quite like Mrs. G.’s 
Yesterday we got that lovely snow/slush/rain storm and the dogs and I
spent the day in the kitchen making Mrs. G.’s Sand tarts. 
There are no nuts in this recipe…
a whole lot of butter, sugar, flour – 
and a whole lot of steps to get there. 
I tripled the batch and it took me four and a half hours from the mixing of dough,
 to the chilling, rolling, cutting out, baking cooling, making the icing and dipping in sugar.
Ah,  those final steps are the secret to these particular Sand Tarts…
 and I’d give you the recipe, but then I’d have to kill you.

Frasiers already had too many cookies, wouldn’t ya say? 
The men are all out shoveling and plowing…
The girlchild and I just came in from barn and coop chores and it sure is messy out there. 
One more batch of cookies today and we’ll have a really nice mix
 to put together for friends.  
Are you a christmas cookie baker?
What’s your favorite kind?  Feel free to share a link to a recipe in the comments section below. 
 It’s a new day, All – Stay warm and make it a good one