Seasonal Chapters: Sensational Sugar Cookies

We've had some snowy weather lately, and yesterday my daughter's school was closed because of the storm. Nothing makes the house feel cozier during a snowstorm than baking a fresh batch of cookies

while a fire roars in the fireplace. I am not usually a big fan of sugar cookies, but my daughter received this recipe from a friend and I have to admit they are amazing. There is something about them that makes them better than your average sugar cookie. Maybe it is the fact that it has both vanilla and almond extract in the recipe. Whatever it is, I assure you that they are worth trying. Traditionally, we have made these at Christmas time, but to welcome the upcoming holiday we decided to use some Valentine cookie cutters. My friend had also given my daughter some cookie stamps recently that had sweet phrases on them, and since this dough does not spread a lot when baking, it is the perfect recipe to use these stamps on, as the words do not get distorted during baking.

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter softened to room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Assorted sprinkles or colored sugar for decorating

Directions
In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamed and smooth, approximately 1 minute.
Add the sugar and beat on high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
Add the vanilla and almond extracts and the egg, and then beat on high until fully combined, approximately 2 minutes, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl again with a spatula as needed.
In a medium bowl. whisk the flower and baking powder together.
With the mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture, beating until just barely combined.
Add the rest of the flour mixture until just combined.
If the dough seems too soft, you can add 1 more tablespoon of flour at a time until it is a better consistency for rolling.
Divide the dough into 2 equal portions.
(At this point we decided to add some red food coloring into some of our dough to create some cookies that were a pinkish shade, and some that were red.)
Roll each portion out to 1/4 " thickness and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before moving on to the next step.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper .
Remove one of the rolled dough pieces from the refrigerator and using cookie cutters, cut into your desired shapes and place the cookies on the parchment lined cookie sheets.

Decorate with sprinkles and colored sugar as desired.

Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all of the dough is used.(As we reached the end of our dough, we rolled some into small balls and placed a Hershey kiss on top, flattening the ball slightly).
Bake for 8-11 minutes, until very lightly colored on top and around the edges.

Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. I mentioned how we used some edible markers for decorating a cake that my son made for his girlfriend in this post, and we used them again for decorating the cookies we made with the stamps