Easter Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups margarine or butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extra
¼ tsp salt
1 cup powdered sugar
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
Food Coloring (optional)

With an electric mixer, beat sugar, butter and salt until creamy. Then beat in the vanilla extract. If you want to make your cookies pretty pastel colors, this is when you would ad 1-3 drops of food coloring. You will only want to use one color per batch, unless you want to split batch. :)  Mix well. Slowly add the sifted flour and beat with a wooden spoon until well blended.  Cut dough in half. Flatten each half and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.

When you are ready to make and bake the cookies…

Heat oven to 350° F.

On a floured surface, roll one half of the dough to about ¼” thickness and cut out your favorite Easter shapes. Arrange the shapes on an ungreased baking sheet and chill about for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, roll out the remaining dough and repeat procedure.

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring the cookies to a wire rack.

Decorate the cookies with pastel color icing and allow to stand until the icing is firm and dry. (icing recipe below)

Yields about 24 cookies

Icing Recipe

This is for icing the cookies. You can make some with icing and some without. Use food coloring and be creative with coloring! :)

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp milk
2 tsp light corn syrup
Food coloring

Mix sugar and milk into a smooth paste. Add the corn syrup and vanilla extract and beat until creamy. Add the food coloring, or if you want to make different colored icing, place the icing into various small bowls and add the food coloring. Brush the icing onto the cookies and allow to dry.

Yields enough icing for about 12 cookies