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1/2 cup butter at room temperature
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1 cup sugar
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2 eggs well beaten
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1 teaspoon vanilla
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1 tablespoon milk
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2 1/4 cups flour
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1 teaspoon baking powder
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1/2 teaspoon soda
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1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix sugar and butter until well blended.
Add eggs, vanilla, and milk. Mix well.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add dry ingredients to liquids. Mix well.
Put in refrigerator covered, chill for at least 2 hours … overnight is best.
When rolling out the cookies and cutting them, be generous with flour on the rolling pin, the work surface, and your hands.
Roll out and cut.
Bake in an oven pre-heated to 375 degrees for 7 to 10 minutes. Grease your cookie sheets or use parchment paper.
Pro-tips: The batter can be rolled and cut best when it’s cold, so take out what you’re going to work with and keep the rest in the fridge while you’re rolling / cutting / baking. If it stays on the counter in a warm kitchen for more than a few minutes, the batter gets softer and stickier and harder to work with. Also, these cookies are delicious thin and crispy or thicker and cake like. You can’t bake them wrong. Use the first sheet into the over to test out different thicknesses of the rolled batter and pick the thickness you prefer.
Also, this recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies. I usually double it.
To decorate, we always just used confectioners / powdered sugar mixed with a tiny amount of milk and just a drop or two of vanilla or almond extract. And, of course, food coloring/ Then sprinkles, sugar, etc. I’ve heard that if you add just a bit of corn syrup to the sugar / milk / extract the icing will harden a bit, making the cookies easier to transport.
Enjoy! Merry Christmas!