Sugar Cookies

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe in the shape of hearts. You can make whatever shape you want though, you just need the cookie cutter. I always get compliments on the recipe, so hopefully you like them :)

Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup margarine or butter, softened 
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar 


Directions
1. Mix powdered sugar, butter (I prefer unsalted butter, but you can use margarine too), vanilla, almond extract, and egg
2. Stir in remaining ingredients
3. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours (I often refrigerate overnight to spread out the time commitment to make these cookies)
4. After dough has refrigerated for enough time, heat oven to 375°.
5. Sprinkle counter-top or pasty cloth with flour. Create larger pile of flour to pat cookie cutters in. 
6. Grab a section of the dough and roll out to about 3/16" thick using a floured rolling pin (as in the picture below).

7. Cut out shapes using cookie cutter. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Or use a cookie sheet with a silpat.

8. Bake until edges are light brown, 7 to 8 minutes. I typically let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for a minute before placing them on the cooling rack

The secret to keeping your cookies moist is to stack them after they've had 5 minutes or so to cool on the cooling rack (as in the stack in the picture above).

Frosting


Ingredients
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup margerine or butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
About 2 Tbsp milk


Directions
1. Mix powdered sugar and margerine
2. Stir in vanilla and milk
3. Beat until smooth and of spreading consistency. Add a little more milk if not smooth enough.
4. Add any food coloring desired.

Let the frosting harden a little before stacking cookies on top of each other in a storage container. 

Note: Instead of frosting, you can decorate cookies with sprinkles before placing in oven. Tip for this: to get sprinkles to stick to cookies better, you can mix egg whites with a little water and paint on cookies, then add sprinkles and cook. 

Credit for recipe goes to Betty Crocker (taken from the Betty Crocker cook book)