Munchie Monday: Soft Cut Out Sugar Cookies!

 In our house the preferred cookies are soft cookies. At least that is preferred by one of us.  The other of us doesn't care...almost any cookie is a good cookie.  Or it was until health issues made them verboten.

We had a Church Easter activity to which I was invited to bring a dozen sugar cookies that would be decorated by attendees at the activity.  Dear One is not a fan of sugar cookies, so in some sense it did not matter what recipe I made since I did not expect him to eat any.

For some reason I seem to not have the source of this recipe. It was online and when I just searched, I did not find it.  I will share what I did.

Soft Cut Out Sugar Cookies

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup soft butter
3/4 granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (both my sister and a dear friend made vanilla last year and each gifted me with some.  I used 5 caps full of vanilla!  Not sure how much it was but the dough smelled delicious.)

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together.  In an electric mixer bowl add the butter and sugar and beat until nice and fluffy, or rather,  smooth and creamy.  Add the egg and vanilla and combine on high speed until fluffy.  Stop after about a minute and scrape down sides of bowl then mix again until fluffy.  Stir in the flour mixture and beat briefly, until dry ingredients disappear.

Divide batter in two parts.  Place each part on a lightly floured parchment paper then, with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out each section to about 1/4 inch thick.  Put one piece of parchment paper on a small sheet pan then place the second sheet of rolled-out dough on top and place in refrigerator for at least one hour.  Don't skip this step.

Remove dough from refrigerator and cut out to your heart's delight.  I used a smallish bunny cookie cutter and was able to cut out 17.  The last three were the dough scraps from the cut-outs melded together by hand and then re-rolled. I got two more bunnies and one round cookie with the final bit of dough.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 11 or so minutes until the cookies are slightly brown at the edges.  SLIGHTLY brown.  Ours were thick enough that they took 14 minutes.  

Let the cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes then remove to a rack to cool completely before frosting and decorating.  Fortunately for me, that step was out of my hands!  I say fortunately because I often have too much icing then stick my fingers in and lick them.  Not such a great idea.  Unless you are checking to see if the icing is good enough for the project...!

It is a good idea to turn the cookie sheet around in the oven about halfway through, especially if you suspect your oven of have uneven baking spots.  I don't suspect it but turned the pan anyway.  Sadly, I put my oven-mitt-covered thumb into one of the cookies which marred its ears badly so that one had to stay home.  It did not last long here.

We took 14 cookies over to the church.  When they were hot out of the oven, after cooling the five minutes, I took the round one to Dear One who had NO TROUBLE AT ALL scarfing it down.  Even though he "hates" sugar cookies.  I asked him about it and he said it was "pretty good."  I then had no qualms about taking them to the Church for the activity.