you didn't think I'd leave you haging on that cookie recipe, did you?

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Easter Sugar Cookies (from the back of the Williams Sonoma box that the cookie cutters came in)

5 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter

6 oz cream cheese (we used a whole pack, so sue us)

2 cups sugar

2 egg yolks

2 Tbs. vanilla extract

  1. Have all ingredients at room temperature. 

  2. Sift flour and sugar over a sheet of parchment paper and set aside.

  3. Fit a flat beater to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat the butter on medium for 1 minute.  Add cream cheese and continue beating until smooth (about 2 minutes).  Add the sugar, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until fluffy and yellow, about three minutes.  Add the egg yolks and vanilla and beat until combined, about 30 seconds.

  4. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three additions, beating each addition before adding more.  Beat until just combined, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

  5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface.  Using floured hands, form the dough into a smooth mound and divide into two equal portions.  Shape each into a disk and wrap separately with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for three hours or up to 2 days.

  6. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.  Remove 1 dough disk at a time from the refrigerator and let stand for 10 minutes.  Place dough on a clean work surface and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.

  7. After rolling and cutting out, place on lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

  8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  9. Bake the cookies until lightly golden on the edges.  (The box says 16-18 minutes, but it took us Mom about 14 minutes...our her cookies were thinner though.

  10. Let cool completely before icing.  (We used a buttercream icing from Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything.)  The box says that the recipe should make 8 of each of the four shapes in the box...but we got about 46 cookies out of one the disks of dough.

  11. Gobble, gobble.

You can thank me anytime...