When making cookies I generally default to my favorite chocolate chip recipe, but there are few things as classic as a good roll-out sugar cookie. My mom shared her recipe and baking tips with me a couple of weekends ago. With some super simple ingredients and one (relatively) unique baking item, I have happily added these to my repertoire. They are a nice, delicate accompaniment to ice cream or sorbet, pretty as a base on a cookie plate, and fun to decorate with the kiddos (recipe and tips below).

Reality Check. My mom will on occasion send a roll of these cookies home with us, to freeze and have ready to make fresh cookies for guests (after bringing the dough to room temperature). We have yet to ever bake any … as snacking on the frozen dough proves much too tempting every time.

Recipe
Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon no-color almond extract
2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Sanding sugar for topping cookies before baking

Makes about 3 dozen 3-in. cookies.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla and almond extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.

Dust a pastry cloth (here is the one unique thing I referred to in the intro paragraph) with a layer of flour. With a rolling pin roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. diameter x 1/8 in. thick. If you have trouble with the cookie cutter sticking, dipping it in flour before each use will help. Top with sanding sugar (which will not melt in the oven and adds a nice sparkle and texture). Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Watch the baking time carefully, and make sure to adjust if you don’t let the pan cool between each batch (as noted below).

Baking tips: Using the pastry cloth helps a great deal when rolling out the cookies. Also, if you have time, allow your cookie sheet to cool before putting in the next round. Putting cookies onto a warm cookie sheet will impact the cooking time and overall appearance of the cookies (ever wonder why some batches come out darker than others?).