Rachel Ward: Festive Sugar Cookies

I know this recipe is one week to late, but better late than never ! This is one of my favourite recipes because its so versatile and can be used fro christmas, easter, birthdays or just a good ol' sunday evening in with the kids ! Its a cookie recipe, brilliant for cookie cutters and the cookies don't loose there shape in the baking process.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1stick) unsalted butter + extra if needed

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing sugar

Assorted decorations for toppings

Method:

1) in a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt and leave to one side.

2) In a separate bowl cream together the sugar and butter.

3) Combine both bowls together and add the egg and mix together, If the dough starts to resemble breadcrumbs add more butter to thicken it up.

4) Once you have a pliable dough divide the mixture in half and flatten between two pieces of parchment paper.

5) Leave the dough to chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

6) Remove one section of the dough at a time from the fridge and roll out to aprox 1/8 inch thick and cut your shapes using cookie cutters.

7) Once you've cut out all your shapes place the unbaked cookies int he the freezer for aprox 2--30 minutes (this will prevent them from spreading whilst baking)

8) After half a hour remove from freezer and bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for 15-18 minutes until golden brown (rotating halfway through)

9) Once cooked leave to cool on a wire rake until completed cool.

10) prepare your icing sugar with a small amount of water and mix until you have the desired thickness and decorate your cookies as you wish.

11) Once decorated leave to set in the fridge for 30 minutes, then simply enjoy !