I believe the recipe is taken straight from Betty Crocker! I have the NEW Betty Crocker published in 2011 and it says this recipe is "lower calorie" but it appears to be the exact same recipe I have been using for 25 years....with ZERO weight loss. In fact these cookies possibly gained me a pound or two over the years.
Sugar Cookies:
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 c.butter (softened)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 egg
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar
In a mixer, cream butter and sugar adding vanilla, almond and egg beating until fluffy. Add flour, soda and cream of tartar, and mix well.
Refrigerate dough at least three hours.
Roll 3/16" thick on well floured pastry board, cut with desired cutters. Bake on un-greased cookie sheet for 7-10 minutes. Light brown edges indicate doneness.
Allow to cool completely, Ice and decorate.
Icing
3 c powdered sugar
1/3 c butter (softened)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 T. milk
Mix well, keep covered and refrigerate any unused icing.
So....this all sounds SO simple....unless you live with me. I had always made sugar cookies a "certain way". Stella never complained, helping me, following explicit instructions.
The year it came to a crisis point was in 2008, when I was forced to return to work, full time, at the bank. Randy was recovering from his second hip surgery and Stella was in an auditioned youth choir preforming with Bethel University in their Christmas concert, "Night of Wonder, Christmas Through a Child's Eyes."
I was physically and emotionally exhausted and some of my wonderful, lifelong friends came to help me get my holiday baking complete. It truly was a gift of their time and presence, but it also was how my sugar cookie psychosis became public knowledge.
Sara was left alone in my kitchen with the icing, and unbeknownst to me, separated the icing into five bowls and added food coloring. My icing is, has been and always shall be....WHITE. She then proceeded to get all the children involved, icing the cookies any color they desired with any sort of sprinkles. My whole idea of how sugar cookies should be done was thrown into chaos.... Stella had more fun making cookies that year THAN ANY OTHER.
I did not think my guidelines for sugar cookies was that unreasonable....all cookies are iced with white icing and then sprinkles are added to create realistic effects. Stars are white with yellow sprinkles. Candy Canes are white with red sprinkle stripes. The sprinkle stripes are allowed to vary by type of sprinkle. Nonpareils, sugar crystals, or jimmies may all be used...but they, of course, must be RED. Bells can vary in color and circle ornaments can vary in color as long as they are iced with white icing. Now when we venture into trees, snowmen and reindeer...I simply lose my mind. Snowmen need circle buttons, orange jimmy nose, reindeer have a cinnamon red-hot nose and trees have brown jimmies trunk, while the decorations on said tree can vary....as long as they are iced in white.
The year I bought the mitten cookie cutter, was the year Stella quit being my cookie assistant. I did not think it was unreasonable to have right and left mittens...that match in decoration. I was apparently wrong.
I bought a cookie cutter shaped like an old fashioned tree light bulb. I struggled getting all the bulbs the right bright colors while getting the part of the light that screws into the fixture part silver. They were cute, but Stella still would not help.
After a few years of happily decorating cookies in solitary confinement, I thought I could get Stella to help me again and relieve some of my sugar cookie OCD by choosing just one style of cookie cutter. I decided upon a circle.. and white nonpareils, white jimmies, white coarse sanding sugar, white snowflake sprinkles, white pearlized sugar sprinkles.... only. SNOWBALLS! How hard could that be?
Well, it would have been simpler if I had only ONE size circle cutter, instead of five. Trying to get the exact same number of each sized cookie with the same type of sprinkles was harder than I thought. Stella once again bailed on me after a dozen or so cookies.
This year I have not decided what I will do. I would really like to do this job with my daughter, since she will be off at college next holiday baking season. Maybe it is time to let her put food coloring back into the icing....
Addendum: My friend Kathy from church thought she was being kind when she gave me a cookie cutter in the shape of Minnesota. I told her it would be really difficult to get 10,000 lakes, the coniferous and deciduous forests represented on one cookie I tried... but this is the ONLY cookie I made.
