Lemon Sugar Cookies: Sharing the Spirit of Giving with 10 Days 'Til Christmas

As we are counting down the days until Christmas and baking/dining to our hearts' content, we wanted to remind ourselves that many children are not so fortunate and unfortunately go to bed hungry at night.

So we wondered what we could do to help.  The easiest way was to click the icon on the left and donate to Share Our Strength.  For as little as $25, we can ensure a child eats 3 complete meals every day for at least a month.  As an added bonus, all donors are also eligible to win various prizes from a Cuisinart mixer to a set of Wusthof knives.

We also wanted to promote the cause as much as we can, so we have joined In Jennie's Kitchen's virtual cookie swap initiative.  Check out her site for tons of wonderful recipes perfect for this holiday season.

For our contribution, we made Lemon Sugar Cookies that can easily be decorated any way you desire.

We used the lemon extract that we made before and added it to our dough instead of vanilla extract.

Below is the Lemon Sugar Cookie recipe we used based on the sugar cookie recipe from AllRecipes.com.  

For our icing and lemon extract recipes, click here.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 Tbsp lemon extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Directions
1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and lemon extract. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 400F (200C). Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.  Roll out dough on the lined baking sheets 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter (approx 1 inch apart). Remove excess dough.

3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

4. Decorate as desired.