each year i set aside a little time during the holiday season to decorate sugar cookies with frosting. there were many many childhood [and college...and maybe also some post-college] years of smearing store-bought icing, m&ms, red and green sprinkles and gumdrops onto our cookies. it's just so festive, the kind of things you remember as being special to christmastime.

things changed a little last year when i graduated onto using royal icing on my sugar cookies, and this year i was feeling some kind of minimalistic snowflakes done in muted, neutral colors. and much like the real deal - no two turned out exactly alike.

regardless of your decorating plans, this sugar cookie dough is the perfect base! last year i happened upon a recipe for cookies that would hold their shape when baked, and which i loved...until i found this recipe, which i love even more. it doesn't need to be chilled, the dough holds it's shape when baked, and the cookies don't puff or spread. the dough also features a little almond extract, which admittedly i'm not a huge fan of within baked goods. almond extract is especially popular down here among the south texas bakeries and 90% of the time i find the flavor to be kind of artificial tasting and overwhelming...just gimme some plain jane vanilla. but in the interest of the holiday season, and having a little faith in humanity and all that jazz, i gave it a go with this recipe. it ended up being so worth it. i kind of see what all the fuss is about now. (and i'll take my tiny christmas miracles wherever i can get them!) so if possible use the almond extract, it definitely enhances but does not overpower the flavor of the cookies.

here's the current reigning champion sugar cookie recipe [as of 2015], and happy holiday baking!

| ingredients |

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder*
2.5 cups - 3 cups all purpose flour**
optional - sprinkles/nonpareils for decorating

*omit if you wouldn't like your cookies to bake or spread
**start with 2.5 cups of flour, and add more as needed. i find that 2.5 cups usually works best, and some additional flour will be worked into the dough as i roll and re-roll it out.

| method |

preheat oven to 350 degrees. line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

in a medium sized mixing bowl, combine flour and baking powder and set aside.

in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until smooth. beat in the egg and extracts until combined.

slowly add in the flour mixture a little at a time. the dough will be relatively stiff. you do not need to chill this dough, so separate into 3 small batches, and working one batch at a time, roll out on a lightly floured surface until 1/4" thick.

cut with your cookie cutters and place onto your cookie sheet. these cookies don't spread when baking so you can fit quite a bit on each baking sheet.

bake the cookies for 6-8 minutes, then let rest for several minutes on your sheet before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

decorate with royal icing, or however you'd like!

hope everyone had a spooktacular halloween! we spent the foggy, overcast day running errands, aided by a quick stop at starbucks for the limited edition frappula. i couldn't quite bring myself to pass up this treat, and was a predictably sugar-filled start to the year's sweetest holiday.

halloween isn't complete without some creepy red velvet cupcakes topped off with gummy brains and vampire fangs (recipe below!) so we whipped up a batch before heading out to trick or treat!

kind of loving that we got an extra hour to lay around today and recover from our sugar comas.

| ingredients |

1 box red velvet cake
3 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter cooled, slightly
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

cream cheese frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-4 cups powdered sugar

red decorating gel
gummy brains
gummy vampire fangs

| method |

preheat oven to 350 degrees. line a cupcake pan with liners and set aside.

in a medium mixing bowl, whisk the red velvet cake mix to remove any lumps. add in the eggs, butter, milk, sour cream and vanilla extract and mix until thoroughly combined. fill the liners 3/4 full with cupcake batter, and bake for 14-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean.

cool cupcakes on a wire rack.

while the cupcakes are baking, prepare the frosting by whipping the cream cheese and butter for 2 minutes. add the vanilla extract until combined. gradually add in powdered sugar and whip until desired consistency is reached.

pipe cooled cupcakes with frosting, and decorate with the red gel and gummy candies.

for the brains, drizzle gel and gently swirl into the icing with a toothpick (or in my case, a chopstick. the toothpicks in our house were mia) and top with a gummy brain.

for the vampire fangs, dot two spots of red gel onto the edge of your cupcake, and gently drag your toothpick downward to create fang marks, top with gummy fangs.

our last-minute costume to accompany the kiddos trick or treating: j as daredevil and some quick cat make up and a fur shawl for me.