Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies

A few weeks back I was on the hunt for the perfect sugar cookie recipe. Although I have made sugar cookies many times in the past, I wasn't completely crazy about the recipe I had on hand. I wanted a cookie that would hold its shape when baked, which is the main problem I was having with my original recipe. You would start of with one shape and then once baked, it was hard to even tell what the cookies once were because they expanded so much while baking. So, after searching through many sugar cookie images on the web, I came across this recipe from Adorkable Recipes, which is exactly what I was looking for. The flavor is great, the texture is great and best of all, the cookie dough does not expand when baked. Now when I cut the dough into the shape of a heart, it still looks like a heart after baking! =) Yay!  Here's my recipe that is a combination of Adorkable's and Wilton's Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1  1/2 cup sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom. The dough will be crumbly, so knead it together with your hands as you scoop it out of the bowl for rolling.

Roll onto a floured surface. Dough should be at least 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes. Dig the cookie cutter into flour before each use to keep dough from sticking.

Place on baking sheets and bake for 6-7 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack. Makes 3 dozen cookies.