Valentine Love--My Mom's Cookies

My mother is a baker.

She is many other things, but she loves to bake. I'm sure I've mentioned before that my son doesn't call her Grandma; he calls her Cookie. He was rolling cookies in sugar for her in his high chair before he was a year old. He made the connection--and she will forever be Cookie, to us. Holidays are full of her baked traditions. Here is her recipe for sugar cookies. It may be the recipe everyone uses, for all I know.

Sugar Cookies, by Cookie Schmidt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream the following ingredients using a mixer:
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Sift the following into the creamed mixture:

2 cups flower

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Mix until incorporated

Make two balls of dough and refridgerate them for 15 minutes.

Roll out and cut your hearts (or any other shapes you love). My mom makes x and o shapes, too. I bake mine on silicone pads in jelly roll pans. My mom uses parchment paper on cookie sheets.

Bake each pan for 10 minutes. Let sit for two minutes once removed from oven and then transfer to a cooling rack. You may want to check them--sometimes ovens run hot and then they get brown and too crispy.

Just a little simple Valentine love--a heart in cookie goodness. I love these plain, but you can frost them up (and she does) with lovely colors, sugars and other candy decorations. I hope you love them, too.