Chocolate Sugar Cookies and Ella's White Sugar Cookies

Both of these recipes have been adapted from Annie's Eats, one of my favorite blogs. She has a lot of especially fun things for young Mothers as she is one and very creative too. 

Here is what you need for the chocolate cookies:

3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/3 C. Dutch process cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
6 T. butter at room temperature
3/4 C. Powdered sugar
1 lg. egg
1/2 t. vanilla

1 egg white beaten with a few teaspoons of water to act a glue for sprinkles, optional.

Using a piece of waxed paper, combine the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and put through a sieve onto the paper, then set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat on med-high speed about 2-3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. Turn the mixer to the lowest speed and blend in the flour mixture until just incorporated and no streaks remain. Form the dough into a disc and wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness and cut with floured cookie cutters. Place on prepared pans and brush lightly with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugars as desired.

Bake 10-12 minutes, just until set. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and remove to cooling racks. You may choose not to use sprinkles and ice or decorate at this time.

The yield depends on the size of the cookie cutters. I got 20, 3" tall numbers.

Ella's White Sugar Cookies

You will need to assemble:

1 C. softened butter
1 C. Powdered sugar
1 egg beaten
1 1/2 t. Almond extract
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. salt
2 1/2 C. sifted all-purpose flour

Cream the butter and sugar well. Blend in the egg, almond, and vanilla, salt, and flour. Make the dough into a disc and wrap in plastic and chill in the refrigerator well, 1-2 hours. 

Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Roll the dough 1/4" thick on a floured surface and cut with floured cookie cutters. Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should not brown.

Again I lightly brushed the raw cut cookies with the egg white and sprinkled with decorations but you may choose to omit this and ice and decorate after baking.

I yielded about 24 cookies but the recipe states 40, again it will depend the size of your cutters.

Both of these recipes are an easy to handle well flavored cookie.