Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Lay parchment paper on your cookie sheets and clean off a nice big area of counter space to roll out the cookie dough.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together in a mashing motion by hand or for 2 to 3 minutes with an electric mixer on low-medium.

Separate an egg and drop the whites in one bowl and the yolk in a second bowl. In the bowl with the yolk, crack and add a second full egg and vanilla, then beat with a fork or whisk. Add the egg mixture to your sugar and butter and mix until well blended.

To your wet mixture add the flour and scatter the salt around the bowl. Mix well for a few minutes with a spatula or a stand mixer on low until a dough forms. (Don’t try mixing this part of the dough with a hand mixer—the dough is very thick and may break your mixer!)

Flour the counter and roll out your dough to a thickness of about ⅜ of an inch. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter and cut circles out of your dough.

In the center of each circle, use a small holiday cookie cutter that is 1 ½ to 2 inches and cut the center out of each cookie. Take a small piece of dough about the size of a large bean and roll it into a ball, then flatten it and press it at the top of your circle for the Christmas tree ornament.

Reroll any extra dough to cut more cookies and place on the prepared baking sheets. Bake the cookies in the oven for 9-11 minutes until they are almost done but still have a light color.

Use a toothpick to pull the gummy candy to fill in any holes while the cookies are still warm. Once the pan has cooled for a few minutes, put the cookie sheet in the fridge for about 5 minutes to fully set the gummies.