My New Favorite Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 egg
2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
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Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In an electric mixer, cream butter and powdered sugar together. Add almond extract, vanilla and egg and mix well. Slowly add in baking powder and flour. When the dough is ready most of it should be sticking to the beater. If the dough is too sticky add up to 1/4 cup more flour.
Roll out on parchment paper or on a surface that has been sprinkled with powdered sugar. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick (or a little thicker if you like really thick, soft cookies, like we do) Cut in desired shapes then bake for 6-8 minutes, rotating the pan 180 degrees half way through baking time.

I tried out 2 new sugar cookie recipes this past weekend. This one was delicious and the other one was just ok. I found this recipe on this fun cookie decorating blog She has some really great cookie decorating ideas and tips. The original recipe calls for 2 tsp baking powder, but I found that my cookies got too puffy and didn't keep their shape very well when I used that much, so I cut it down to 1 tsp. Also she uses unsalted butter, which I never buy, so I used regular butter and just cut the salt out of the recipe. This dough is awesome, though. You don't need to refrigerate it prior to rolling it out and it's really easy to work with. These cookies taste so good, even without frosting, but I can imagine that they would be absolutely amazing with some cream cheese frosting piled on top of 'em.