Cookie Recipe

INGREDIENTS
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
(optional but tastes so good!)
2 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 300
DIRECTIONS
1. Combine butter and powdered sugar; beat until fluffy with an electric mixer. Approximately 2 mins.
2. Beat in egg, vanilla, and almond extract.
3. Sift together flour and salt in a separate bowl.
4. Slowly add the sifted flour mixture to the wet cookie dough.
5. Blend these ingredients until the flour is thoroughly mixed in. Don’t over mix!
6. Divide the dough into four balls and shape each into a rough rectangle ball.
7. Place the dough between two layers of plastic wrap and roll into ¼” thickness slab.
8. Chill the rolled dough (you can stack the plastic wrapped pieces) in the refrigerator for approximately 30 minutes.

How to emboss your cookies:

Take the first slab of rolled dough out of the refrigerator. You may need to let it soften a bit, but chilled dough works best. If it’s too hard, let it sit out on the kitchen counter for 5 minutes. If it’s too soft, it will stick to your cookie stamp. It might take some practice to find the right amount of firmness and dough temperature. Remove the plastic wrap and place the slab of dough on a square piece of parchment paper that is roughly the same size as your cookie cutter. Dust and gently rub the dough with a thin layer of flour to keep the cookie stamp from sticking. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Firmly press down on the dough stamp to embed it into the dough. Then, apply even pressure on the outer edges with both hands to imprint the design. Gently tilt the handle and rock back and forth until the stamp pulls away from the dough.

How to cut out your cookies:

Center the cookie cutter over the embossed design and cut out the cookie. Remove the excess dough from around the cutter. Place cookies back into the refrigerator for approximately 20 minutes. Chilling the embossed cookies before baking helps them maintain their shape. Reshape the scrap dough and roll it into another rectangle. You may need to re-chill the dough for a few minutes before using again and embossing more cookies with it. Bake cookies at 300 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. A slow bake helps the embossed design be more prominent.