The Best Sugar Cookies Ever

I'm a huge cookie lover. I'd like to refer to myself as 'The Cookie Monster" because I'm not one to share my treats, sorry ain't going to happen. Last week I tried Fifteen Spatulas' The One and Only Christmas Sugar Cookies recipe for Halloween and the title doesn't lie. I made a whole bunch so there were still some left over after a few days and guess what? The cookies were still soft and delicious!


Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 extra large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
7.5 oz all purpose flour (1.5 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt (1/4 tsp)


Instructions

1. Cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer. Add the egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract, and beat until blended.
2. In a bowl, whisk to combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar and beat just until the flour disappears. Scrape the dough out into plastic wrap. The dough may look slightly crumbly, but it should come together well as you shape it into a disk. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
3. Flour your counter top, and roll the dough out to the desired thickness (I do somewhere between 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch thick). Cut the dough with your cutters and place on your baking sheet (no need to grease the pan or use parchment if you don't want to). Refrigerate for 25 minutes, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
4. Bake for 10 minutes until very faintly golden brown on the edges. Cool on a wire rack completely before decorating. 
5. For frosting, you can mix together confectioner’s sugar, water or milk, splash of vanilla, and a little food coloring. I just eyeballed the measurements based on the desired thickness.

 

What I've learned about how the cookies came out so good: the butter must be at room temperature (don't know why but it makes a hell of a difference). Mix the dough only until the flour is gone, if you over mix, the cookie becomes tough and hard. "Aging" or refrigerating dough also is a big help because it allows for the ingredients to really blend together and interact well.