Butter Cookies with Butter Icing

I enjoy decorating cookies so I always make one batch of cookies so I can do just that. This year I found a Land O Lakes recipe in a magazine called 'Best Ever Butter Cookies' so decided to give it a shot.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder

DIRECTIONS
Combine butter, sugar and egg in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour, orange juice, vanilla, and baking powder. Beat until well mixed.

Divide dough into thirds; wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm (2 hours or overnight).

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on lightly foured surface to a 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness, one third at a time (keep remaining dough refrigerated). Cut with 3-inch cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool completely before icing.

ICING (I made peppermint frosting and tinted it four different colors)
3 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 to 3 Tbsp milk

Combine all ingredients except milk in small bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often and gradually adding enough milk for desired spreading consistency.

Variations: For almond frosting, add 1/2 tsp almond extract. For cocoa frosting, stir in 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa and increase milk to 5 to 6 Tbsp. For peppermint frosting, stir in 1 tsp peppermint extract. For spice frosting, stir in 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/8 tsp ground cloves, and 1/8 tsp nutmeg.

Tip: I divided my frosting into four and colored each one differently (plain red, blue, green, and yellow). I put each into a ziploc baggie, cut a very small bit off of one corner of the bag, and used it as a piping bag. It's cheaper than a real piping bag and just as easy.