Sugar Cookies

I've started a recipe book with some of my favorite desserts to make and meals my mom cooks when I come home from school. Here's the recipe for sugar cookies I now use, and pictures of the ones we made for our holiday craft.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups APF
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (two sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

METHOD

1. Whisk together the flour & salt in a medium bowl, set aside
2. Using a mixer, cream together the butter & sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg & vanilla, mix until well blended
3. With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until thoroughly blended
4. Add food coloring if you want
5. Turn out the dough onto the work surface & divide it into 2 or 3 equal portions. Form each into a rough disk
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
7. Roll and cut dough (1/4" thick). TIP: Place dough between two pieces of parchment cut to side of cookie sheet so you can just remove excess dough and don't have to pick up each cookie and replace it on a separate sheet (streamlined!)
8. Let dough cool in fridge
   
9. Bake until it turns slightly golden on edges, 12-16 min.
10. Cool completely before decorating.
    

We bought icing for flooding and for decoration + food color to make the different designs. Great way to spend a snowy afternoon.

Bonus pic: the cake we got from Party Favors in Brookline. Seriously the best (Georgina, you yourself sampled one of their crazy flower cupcakes. Imagine that amount of frosting times 10.)

And yes, those trees are completely icing (save for a little green stick supporting it). My mouth was, consequently, a strange blue-green for the rest of the evening (which consisted of more eating and watching old movies). The skiers were quite fun to play with, as well. Don't know if you can tell, but those skiers were seriously carving down that sloped surface (yes, the cake was sloped).