Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies

These are some of the best sugar cookies I have had! They are soft, moist, and delicious! The frosting is awesome, too. It gets hard enough to stack the cookies (some frosting sticks to the bottom but not very much...and it might not if a person waited a little longer to stack them), but stays soft too, if that makes any sense. 

INGREDIENTS:

For the cookies:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1.5 cups white sugar

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2.5 cups white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

For the frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup shortening (I used butter flavor)

2 Tablespoons milk plus 1.5 teaspoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

food coloring, if desired

DIRECTIONS:

For the cookies:

In large bowl, cream sugar and butter together until smooth.

Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate dough for at least one hour for easier handling.

Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Use a cookie cutter, and place cut out shapes onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake @400F for about 6 minutes, until bottom edges are just beginning to brown (the tops will still look white). Remove from oven and off of baking sheet immediately. Cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting:

In large bowl, cream together the powdered sugar and shortening.

Slowly mix in milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until stiff and smooth.

Add food coloring if desired.

I found this recipe here and made a few adjustments, including cutting down the servings.  I made 25 good-sized cookies with this. If you need more, its easily doubled. The frosting recipe (from here) makes enough for all of the cookies plus a couple more.