Baking Christmas Cookies & Recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 3 cups of flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• colored sugars for decorating

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and mix until combined.
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Make sure to spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level it off with a knife to ensure accurate measurements. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until completely combined.
3. Roll the dough between 2 sheets of parchment or wax paper and place on a baking sheet in the refrigerator. Chill for about 20-30 minutes.
4. Cut dough into shapes with cookie cutters and transfer to a baking sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugars and bake at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes. Cool on baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container. Makes about 40-50 cookies.

Notes

For this recipe, the dough only needs to chill about 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator since it is already rolled out. If you would rather chill the dough first before rolling, you'll want to increase the chill time to about an hour.

Using the parchment paper is a great tip for rolling the dough, because it eliminates the need to add extra flour to keep it from sticking.

My cookies were done baking in 9 minutes, but check yours closely. You want them to be just barely set and not yet browned. They'll seem slightly undercooked right out of the oven, but will firm up nicely once cooled. 9 minutes seemed to be the sweet spot for me!

This recipe comes from Liz at Love Grows Wild and it was PERFECT! I did everything exactly as she wrote it and the cookies rolled out easily, cut out easily and were delicious so please go check out her own post with this recipe!

Happy Baking!