Sugar Cookies Recipe

(This is not my complete own recipe, I have changed a few things but cannot take full credit!)

Hello Everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful new year! I am incredibly sorry that my first post of 2015 is at the end of the month! I explained in my previous post about my short absence so if your interested in that then I suggest you read that! I thought to kickstart the new year I'd do a baking post, as one of my targets for my blog is to hopefully begin posting cooking posts at least once a month and since I made some delicious cookies with my best friend on the weekend I thought this was a great opportunity!

What you will need:
225g Softened Butter
140g Sugar
1 Egg
1tsp of Vanilla Extract
280g Plain Flour
Icing sugar
Choice of decoration

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 Degrees and line two/three backing trays with either butter or greaseproof paper - either works fine. Then begin by placing the butter and sugaring a large bowl and mix firmly together until the mixture has turned white and should be light and fluffy. Then crack the egg into a small bowl and beat the egg before pouring in the mixture, along with the vanilla mixture and stir until the mixture has combined. Then sift the flour into the mixture gradually, each time fold in the flour - you do this by taxing the mixture from the outside and folding it over, keep doing this until the flour has been completely folded into the mixture. Using your hands take the mixture and squash it into two separate balls. Then begin rolling out the dough until it is fairy thin. Using shape cutters cut the dough into large hearts (any shape is fine) and place them onto the baking tray. Place the trays into the oven and cook for about ten minutes.

Whilst the cookies are baking you can begin to prep the icing. Firstly decide whether you will be creating royal icing or buttercream. I personally like to use royal icing for cookies, however if you want to use buttercream replace the water with butter and mix together as usual until it is a light white colour and has a fluffy texture. Place a large amount of icing into a bowl and add water slowly until the mixture starts to become runny. Make sure the mixture becomes thick as this will prevent the icing from dripping of the cookies. After the cookies have come out of the oven place them onto a baking tray to cool, and once they are cool you can begin icing and decorating them. I used sprinkles for mine just because I love the look of them! You can use anything you so wish to! Altogether this should take between forty-five minutes and an hour!

I love this recipe (I most definitely have a sweet tooth!) And I'd love to hear if you recreate them in the comments! Let me know if you'll be attempting this! I hope you enjoyed the first post of 2015!