Eggnog Sugar Cookies

Beat the butter with the sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the eggnog, flour, baking powder and salt, blending until the dough is smooth.

Divide the dough in half. Place each half between 2 sheets of wax paper and roll out to 1/4″ thick. Refrigerate for 30-45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Pull 1 dough sheet from the refrigerator and peel off the top sheet of wax paper. Cut into shapes using your favorite cookie cutters and space 1″ apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8-12 minutes at 375ºF, or until the edges begin to brown. Repeat with the rest of the dough. When you aren’t actively cutting out cookies, keep the dough refrigerated; if it gets too warm, it will spread too much during baking.

When you can’t get any more cookies out of your dough, mash the scraps together and roll the dough out once more. Cut out all the additional cookies you can, then do what my grandpa always did: piece together the scraps into random shapes and place them on the cookie sheets.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before decorating with royal icing.