Vanilla Roll-Out Cookies
- 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- Sprinkles or other sugar decorations (optional)
- Royal Icing (optional)
- Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Add sugar and salt and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add egg; beat until well blended, about 1 minute.
- Reduce speed to low and beat in vanilla.
- Add flour and beat on low speed just to blend.
- Gather dough into ball; divide in half.
- Form each half into ball and flatten into disk.
- Wrap disks separately in plastic and chill until firm, at least 4 hours.
- DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead.
- Keep chilled.
- Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350F.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 1/8-inch thickness for smaller (2-inch) cookies and 1/4-inch thickness for larger (3- to 4-inch) cookies.
- Using decorative cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart.
- If cookies become too soft to transfer to baking sheets, place in freezer on waxed paper for 5 minutes before continuing.
- Gather scraps, roll out dough, and cut more cookies, repeating until all dough is used.
- If not icing cookies, decorate with sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if desired.
- Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are firm on top and golden around edges, about 10 minutes for smaller cookies and up to 14 minutes for larger cookies.
- Cool completely on rack.
- Decorate with Royal Icing, then sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if desired.
- Let stand until icing sets.
- DO AHEAD: Can be made 4 days ahead.
- Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight containers.
unsalted butter, sugar, salt, egg, vanilla, flour, sprinkles, icing
Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/vanilla-roll-out-cookies-240670 (may not work)