Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I signed up to bring 38 sugar cookies for two seperate class parties. I found a new sugar cookie recipe this past Christmas on Creating Post It Notes that has a lot of vanilla flavor and bakes up soft! Using a regular sized cookie cutter you will get 5 dozen cookies. I stopped at 50! My hands couldn't take any more rolling, cutting, and sprinkling.

Before I post the recipe, I wanted to offer a few tricks to bake up the best sugar cookie ever:

1. Do not over bake. When the edge of the cookie is lightly brown, it's time to take them out. With this recipe do not be concerned if the cookie is still a light color. It just means it will be nice and soft.

2. Chill your dough. For the first batch this past Christmas I chilled the dough over night. That was way too long! For this batch I chilled the dough for 5 hours and it was perfect.

3. Work in small batches and keep the rest of the dough chilled.

4. Never over use left over dough. I only reuse it once before I toss it. It will become too dry and brittle.

5. Use as little flour on your board as possible. You want the cookies to taste like vanilla and sugar crystals, not flour!

So with all of that said, here is the recipe:

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
6 cups all-purpose flour

• Cream the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl until smooth.
• Add the sugar and cream until fluffy.
• Add one egg at a time, beating between each addition.
• Add the baking powder, extract, salt and milk all at once. Mix well.
• Add the flour, one cup at a time.
• Chill until cold and firm
• When rolling out your dough, do not roll too thinly. Use as little flour as possible when rolling.
• Do not overcrowd your cookie sheet. Give these cookies room to expand a little without fear of bumping into a neighbor.
• Preheat your oven to 375*.
• Cookies will be done baking between 7-10 minutes. Pull from the oven just when the edge start looking slightly brown and cool them on a cooling rack. Don't be afraid if they look too blond. That means they'll be perfectly soft!

Here are the cookies I made this past 4th of July with the same recipe: