{Vanilla Sugar Cookies}

I love the rain, you'll never hear me complain about it but it does mean the peas get bored inside, so on a rainy Melbourne Tuesday Jack made these (with minimal intervention!) really as an activity and a base for the icing which is of course the part that he loves most. 


They are sugar cookies so yes they are sweet, but they are really basic to make and so much fun to roll out, cut shapes from and decorate, they kept him busy for a whole afternoon and he is so proud of them. This morning he packed his dad about 20 of them for work! This makes enough to put one dough disk in the freezer for another rainy day.

...the cookies
4 cups sifted plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

250g butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

...orange juice icing

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

juice and zest of 1/2 an orange

Cream the butter and sugar using a mixer until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs and vanilla and combine, sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt and whizz it some more until incorporated.

Tip the dough onto your bench and divide and shape it into 2 disks, wrap in clingfilm (at this point I put one in the freezer for another time, double wrapped) refrigerate until firm, at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 160, roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/2 cm thickness. Cut out shapes and transfer to your lined baking tray, bake them until the edges turn golden, around 15 minutes. Let them cool on rack before decorating.

This time we made an orange juice icing, 1 cup of icing sugar with the juice and zest of half an orange, just combine and mix till smooth.