Start your Christmas baking with these soft and buttery sugar cookies.

2/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
Powdered Sugar Icing (optional)
Decorative sprinkles and/or small candies (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. Divide dough in half. If necessary, cover and chill about 30 minutes or until dough is easy to handle.
On a lightly floured surface, roll half of the dough at a time until 1/4 inch thick. Using a 4-1/2- to 6-inch cookie cutter, cut dough into desired shapes. Place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 8 to 9 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are very lightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack; cool.

If desired, prepare Powdered Sugar Icing. Spread and/or pipe the icing (if using) onto cookies. If desired, top iced cookies with sprinkles and/or candies. Makes 14 to 16 cookies.

Powdered Sugar Icing: In a small bowl, combine 2 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in 2 tablespoons milk. Stir in additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until icing reaches spreading consistency. If desired, tint with paste food coloring.

December is almost here, so Cole and I are getting ready for Christmas!

He’s been so excited about Christmas, pretty much since Halloween ended. He asks me all the time if we can make Christmas cookies. We made gingerbread cookies not that long after Halloween, and decorated them with Halloween candy. I froze half of them to decorate closer to Christmas. I don’t have any pictures of them because we ate them too fast. When I defrost the second half I’ll make sure to take photos and write a post on them. For now I’ll post about our sugar cookies. On the day of our first snowfall of the season, Cole and I made these sugar cookies together. Cole had so much fun stirring up he dough, licking the beaters, rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes, decorating the cookies, and best of all…eating the cookies! Cut-out cookies are great for making with kids because they’re not too difficult and encourage kids to get creative with decorating.  I thought this recipe produced a very nice cookie. The dough was fairly easy to work with as long as you make sure to chill it well, and the cookies had a nice taste and texture. I cooked them for 7 mintues because I like mind a bit chewy. The icing also worked great. We just spread it on with baby spoons, or drizzled it on the cookies. I’d imagine these cookies would freeze just fine if you wanted to do that. They got eaten up too fast at my house so I didn’t get a chance to test that theory.