The best sugar cookie recipe!

Anna strikes again! She wanted to make sugar cookies to bring to her MAST class for their Christmas lunch and she had to be able to do it all on her own!! I found a recipe for her that was described in the following way: "Soft cut out sugar cookie recipe that keeps its shape and dough does not need to be chilled before baking- perfect edges every time!" I thought, that is exactly what we are looking for here! Let's go for it. And go for it, she did! She mixed, rolled, and cut out the dough all on her own, and after I helped bake it, she finished the cookies off by decorating them with icing and sprinkles! Thy turned out out-of-this-world delicious and beautiful to boot! My guess is her classmates are going to love her tomorrow. :)))

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups granulated white sugar
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 6 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in vanilla  and almond extracts and eggs until well incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl combine baking powder with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes too stiff for your mixer, either switch from paddle attachment to dough hook or turn out the dough onto a counter top surface, wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.
5. Do not chill the dough. (If you must chill the dough just leave it on the counter top for 10 minutes before rolling or work the dough with your hands for a few minutes.) Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).
6. Bake at 350 for 7-9 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheets until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
7. Frost with you favorite icing. We used water icing on these, as it is very easy to work with. Just mix powdered sugar with very little bit of water and keep adding water a few drops at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Color and ice away! :)

Yield will vary depending on the size of your cookie cut-outs but I would say you should have anywhere between 4 and 6 dozen- the recipe makes a big batch of dough.

Recipe courtesy to Katrina's kitchen: best-sugar-cookie-recipe