In my opinion, no holiday tin is complete without a few decorated sugar cookies. I know that I just posted another sugar cookie recipe very recently, but I had to share these because they are my absolute favorite sugar cookies ever! The situation with these is similar to with the fudge I posted below. They are one of the many goodies given to our family during the holidays, and I was just blown away by how good they were. I made sure to find out who had given us the cookies and then tracked down the recipe. I have been making these for probably five or six years now and I just love them. They always turn out wonderfully and they keep very well. I typically decorate with store-bought frosting just because the process of making the dough, rolling it out, cutting out shapes and baking the cookies leaves me less than enthusiastic by the time I get to decorating. Even so, they turned out pretty cute :)

Ella’s White Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
2 ½ cups sifted flour

Directions:
Cream butter. Add powdered sugar. Blend in egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. Chill dough until firm. Roll to ¼” thickness on well-floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 8-10 min. Cookies should not brown. Frost and decorate when cool. Yields ~40 cookies.

Source: passed on to me by family friend Donna