Ingredients

• Cookie Dough
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup butter - room temp, may use salted (2 sticks)
• 4 large eggs, room temp
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp. baking powder slightly rounded ( or 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp slightly rounded)
• 4 1/2 cups flour
• Frosting
• 2 1/2 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 1/4 c. milk or water or a little more to make frosting a thick drizzle
• Colored nonpareils for decorating cookies
• Optional - Hard cooked eggs decorated for the "Easter Bunny"

Instructions

1. Making dough
2. In a large bowl combine the room temp. butter and granulated sugar, mix with an electric mixer until very creamy and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, crack eggs into a liquid measuring cup, add 1 Tbsp vanilla and with a fork beat to combine.
4. In a medium bowl combine the salt, baking powder and flour. Stir well to combine all ingredients
5. Now add egg/vanilla mixture to butter/mixture in four additions. Mix after each addition (add, mix;add, mix;add mix....)
6. After all egg/vanilla mixture has been added begin adding flour mixture. Again do it incrementally and mix after each addition. There is a lot of flour so dough will begin to become rather thick, but still a bit sticky. You haven’t done anything wrong, continue until all flour mixture has been incorporated.
7. Remove dough from mixing bowl, shape into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap to chill several hours or overnight.
8. Baking Cookies
9. This is where the fun begins. Collect a group of children to help, give them some suggestions on shapes and let them do the work
10. Remove dough from refrigerator
11. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line baking sheets with parchment paper
12. Dough will be very firm so use a bench knife to divide dough into smaller pieces to make it easier to work with.
13. Once each cookie is shaped place on parchment.
14. Cookies will “puff” a bit but don’t really spread too much. Just be sure to place the same sizes cookie on each tray as bigger cookies will will take longer to bake, thus leaving the smaller ones to burn.
15. Once you have a tray assembled place in preheated oven and set timer for about 8 minutes for small cookies, 10 minutes for slightly larger ones
16. While cookies are baking prepare frosting
17. Cookies are done when slightly firm to touch and when lifted from tray slightly brown on bottom. ( Remember they will continue to bake for a few minutes once removed from oven.
18. Frosting
19. In a medium bowl combine the confectioner’s sugar with 1/4 c. milk. Stir to combine, mixture will be fairly thick. Allow to”rest for a few minutes and stir again, adding the vanilla. the frosting has probable become a little thinner however if still very thick add a small amount of milk to form a thick drizzle