1 ½ cups powdered sugar – sifted
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond flavoring
2 ½ cups pre-sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Heat oven to 375º

Cream sugar and butter together on a mixer. Add eggs and flavorings and mix well. Mix flour, soda & cream of tartar together in a bowl then blend into butter/sugar mixture. Chill for 1-2 hours. Roll out on lightly flowered wax paper. **Here is my secret – don’t roll it too thin. Make sure you leave at least ¼” even thickness. If you roll it too thin then the cookies are dry and crispy not soft and yummy.**

Cut with cookie cutters as close together as you can. You can put the dough back into a ball and roll out one more time with the scraps but try not to add to much flour into the dough when you do this or it will make dry cookies. Place on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until just starting to turn brown. After cooled a bit from oven take off carefully and put on wax paper some place frosting can harden on them overnight. If you can’t frost them right away cover with saran wrap so they don’t dry out.

Variations: I prefer to frost my cookies after they have cooled and then decorate with red hots and sugars. You can also color the dough for holidays or sprinkle with colored sugars.

Frosting (from Pink Frosted Cookies):
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons soft butter
2 Heaping Tablespoons of dry cream (Coffeemate)
Drop of vanilla
Hot Water

Food Coloring, sprinkles etc. Food Coloring & Sprinkles

Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar and dry cream. Cut in 2T soft butter. Add very hot water and mix rapidly with hand mixer until smooth and spreading constancy. (I like it to be thick enough to thoroughly cover the cookie but thin enough to run off the cookie slightly.) Pick up the cookies one by one and ice them until the frosting is running off the sides. Set back down on wax paper and decorate. Enjoy!