frosted sugar cookies

my great grandmother, mom mom, preferred cookie recipes that made a WHOLE LOT. i pretty much feel the same way. these amazingly simple sugar cookies double and triple nicely for a humongous tray of prettily-decorated, heavenly cookies. (if your mixer is big enough. mine is not. oops.)

this (triple) batch is decorated with betty crocker "butter cream" frosting colored with mccormick neon food dye-- apricot is green + pink, raspberry is blue + pink and turquoise is blue + green. they're going to a family reunion this weekend, at my uncles jim & frank's house.

this batch (well, several batches) was from almost a year ago was made for bill's cousin melissa's shower shortly before she and her husband brought home their beautiful son tyson from china. they were decorated with yellow "butter cream" (the stars) and confectioner sugar and milk glaze. the colors matched the invitation pretty well, though i'm not sure anyone but me knew that.

ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

prep:

• preheat oven to 400*
• allow cold ingredients to warm up
• grease baking sheets

actual cooking:

• beat butter until creamy
• add sugar, eggs, vanilla & almond extract
• combine flour, baking powder & salt
• add to creamed mixture
• chill in a disc for one hour
• roll out to 1/4 inch think on a well-floured surface
• cut out desired shapes (i don't reccomend stars because OMFG, hard to frost)
• bake for 6-8 minutes
• cool & decorate (if you're using "butter cream" be warned it takes several days to set)

these always go over well because, frankly, they're freaking fantastic. really, truly delightful cookies. not to toot my own horn.