Sugar Cookies

One of my favorite memories is making decorating sugar cookies with my neighbor as a little girl.
I may have only participated in this activity one or two times with her, but this neighbor has gone down in the history of my heart as the sugar cookie lady!  For some reason, decorated cookies made an imprint on my life. 

Because of the little bit of time she invested in me by including me in this sweet time, I love to decorate cut out sugar cookies throughout the year.  In fact, I have quite a collection of cookie cutters for all types of holidays and events. 

I've learned that trying to attempt the project all in one day can be stressful especially if you have small children and other priorities.  Break up the process to make it EEE (Easy, Effective, Enjoyable):
Day One:  Prepare cookie dough and chill
On a 2nd day (doesn't need to be the next day):  Remove dough from refrigerator and let rest on counter for thirty minutes or so.  Roll dough and cut out cookies and bake.  The baked cookies can be frozen for a week or so until you have time to enjoy decorating them.
On a 3rd day:  Decorate the cookies.  If you are using a icing glaze for the first covering of the cookies, go ahead and do this so they can harden.  You can come back later in the day to embellish the cookies with other icing colors.
WITH MANY CHILDREN - for me, having too many hands and bodies in the kitchen was overwhelming.  Sometimes I had the children work on different parts of the cookies OR they came in shifts for their turn to decorate the cookies. 

PERFECT SUGAR COOKIES:

3 sticks of butter softened (but not soupy-soft)

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
6 cups all-purpose flour (unsifted)
2 tsp. baking powder (Argo brand - make sure it is fresh)
¾ teaspoons salt
2 ¼ tsp. vanilla

1. Cream butter and sugar
2. Add in eggs one at a time.
3. Add in vanilla
4. Mix together dry ingredients and then add into the above ingredients.
5. Separate into three ball of dough and chill for at least 30 minutes.

• Note: Sometimes these cookies just don’t hold their shape. It HELPS to roll out chilled dough right out of refrig. THEN place on cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the freezer for 30 min.
• These bake well at 375 (1/4 in. thickness) for 11 minutes (for large, thick cookies)
• I used two cookie sheets (chef’s quality), and while one sheet of cookies was baking, I rolled out cookies for the 2nd sheet and put it in the refrigerator so the cookies would stay cold while the others baked.
• For miniature cookies (roll less than ¼ in. thickness) bake for 10 min.
• Remove cookies immediately from cookie sheet and place on cooling rack.

ICING –
Royal icing (eggs whites and powdered sugar w cream of tartar) works BEST
For the glaze – just mix it thin
For the piping – add in powdered sugar to thicken for the right consistency