Recipe: Butter Cookies

As I mentioned over here, I send all my fabulous friends from book club a mug full of my favorite, homemade cookies for our Valentines gift exchange. I was worried they wouldn't be very tasty after a couple of days bouncing all across the country, but I was assured that they were still delicious upon arrival. This morning, I recieved this tweet:

Toni's request started this chain reaction, & it was suggested that I post it here.

And since there isn't much I wouldn't do for my girls, here it that recipe:

Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:
1. Cream the butter until smooth. Stir in the sugars and vanilla extract until they are evenly blended. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.
2. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, 1/3 at a time, stirring after each addition, until dough is smooth.
3. Divide dough in 2-4 pieces, and place each piece on a large piece of plastic wrap, pat each into a 1/2 inch thick disc, and then wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours (or 20 mins in the freezer).
4. Unwrap one piece of dough, place it between 2 sheets of plastic wrap, then roll it out to a thin disc. If the dough gets too soft, refrigerate for a few minutes, and do another piece in the meantime.

5. Cut cookies and place on parchment paper, and pop them in the fridge. You want the cookies to go into the oven cold, so they don't melt out. Repeat with remaining dough.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, place cold cookies an inch apart on lined cookie sheets, and bake cookies 3-13 minutes depending on size (regular sized cookies are 10-13 mins, mini cookies are 3-5 mins (in my oven). When done, they will still be a little soft to the touch, and just barely golden around the edges - the cookies have a better texture if you don't let the edges brown.
7. Leave cookies on the sheet for 1 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

P.s. This dough is also excellent rolled into logs, and stored in the freezer, for a convenient supply of homemade, ready-to-bake cookie dough.

I am just so happy everyone enjoyed the cookies <3