Hungree Girl: Sugar Cookies

In my world, Sugar Cookies = love. There's just something about a simple Sugar Cookie that somehow translates into real feelings. It's got a simple message; it's a gift that is purely sweet. For this reason, I just had to make sugar cookies for two occasions, because when people eat these they know you love them. The first: visiting the summer camp I worked at for the past 2 years and the second: celebrating Paige's second-to-last day of work. So, I made some dough, baked the babies, and had my GREAT gals Sara and Nicole over to help me decorate. It was actually a scene from a 5 year old's birthday party as the three of us sat at my counter hovered over our cookies in concentration. But HEY it's really fun and actually soothing. So, make a batch, find some friends, and have a cookie decorating party of your own.

Sugar Cookies *recipe by Judy Rosenberg

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 1/2 tbs unsalted butter, cold, cut into 12 pieces
1 large eg
1 tbs vanilla extract

glaze *mine
4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup heavy cream
juice of 1 lemon

Recipe: In a bowl with an electric mixer, combine all of the dry ingredients and mix. Then, add the butter into the flour mixture and mix on medium for about 40 seconds, until the dough resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until it comes together, about 30 seconds. Remove the dough from the bowl, knead it for a few seconds. Divide it into two slabs, wrap each one in plastic, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove one slab of dough from the fridge and place it between two pieces of plastic wrap, rolling it out with a rolling pin about 1/8 of an inch thick.
Remove the plastic wrap and use a cookie cutter to cut shapes and transfer the cookies too a greased baking sheet. Repeat with second slab, then reroll and cut out the scraps.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden but the middle is still white.
Cool on a baking sheet.

For the glaze: Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl. If using food coloring, divide the glaze among bowls and whisk in drops of food coloring. One the cookies have cooled, decorate and then place cookies in fridge to speed up setting time of the glaze, until they harden.