Tasty Tuesday: Sugar Cookies!

My mom is a fabulous baker. She bakes all year long, but she truly shines at Christmas time. Each year she makes all of her friends and family members huge trays, loaded with a wide variety of different types of cookies. I will never have the patience or the love of baking to create the same kind of cookie masterpieces that she does, and I've accepted that that's just the way I am. (Even though I would love to bake like her.) However, one of her simplest and easiest recipes is, in my book, also one of the best tasting. I used to love helping her make them when I was a kid, and the recipe was one of the first I asked for when I moved out. To this day, for any occasion, I make her sugar cookie recipe.

Thanks to different cookie cutter shapes I've made sugar cookies for holidays, for my sister's baby shower, as gifts for people, and sometimes just because I feel like having them. Pretty soon I'll be making them for Valentine's Day, and I'm excited to get Stephanie in on the action this year! (They are a great cookie to make with little kids.)

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:
~6 Tbsp butter
~6 Tbsp shortening
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1 teas vanilla
2.5 C flour
1 teas baking powder
1 teas salt

*Mix shortening, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla
*Blend in flour, baking powder & salt. Cover and chill 1 hr (I have made the dough and chilled overnight also. It comes out fine.)

~Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
~Roll the dough and cut out shapes.
~Decorate with sprinkles (optional)
~place shapes on un-greased baking sheet (I use parchment paper. Clean-up is much easier that way!)
~Bake 6-8 minutes at or until very light brown.

My favorite part as a kid was decorating with the sprinkles. Now for some reason I find that part tiresome, but I know Stephanie will have a blast with it. You can also add food coloring to the dough to make it different colors. (My mom always made orange at Halloween and I swear for some reason they tasted better than any other time she made them!)

Enjoy!

Linking up with The New Modern Mom today for Tasty Tuesday! 

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