Watkins Vanilla Sugar Cookies - a Valentine's Day spin

Watkins Vanilla Sugar Cookies - made dough January 7, 2022 from All-American Cookie Book by Nancy Baggett 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted after measuring

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks

generous pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons sugar or colored decorated sugar, for sprinkling

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder; set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and sugar until well combined and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks then salt and vanilla, until evenly incorporated.
3. Beat in flour on low speed, in two additions, mixing until just combined. 
4. Divide dough in half and place each half between large pieces of parchment paper. Roll each piece 1/8" - 1/4" thick, depending on your preference. Keeping between the parchment paper, refrigerate each piece for at least 30 minutes or freeze for 15 minutes, until cold and firm.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Working with one piece of dough at a time, remove chilled dough from the refrigerator or freezer and remove top layer of parchment paper. Cut into desired shapes and evenly space on prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle with sugar if desired.
7. Bake cookies for 8-11 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes then transfer cookies to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Back to my baking books for this one. I'm still on a Valentine's Day care package bender and wanted a simple sugar cookie cut out recipe that I was going to decorate for the care packages. That is, if by decorating you mean sticking 5-6 red M&Ms on each one before baking. I also cheated on the M&Ms because they weren't from the Valentine M&M package which hadn't gone on sale at Target yet when I made these. Instead, I opened a bag of Christmas red and green M&Ms that I bought before Christmas (although they hadn't been on sale then either, come to think of it) and yes, I picked out all the red M&Ms to use for this recipe. What?? They're still M&Ms! Plus I didn't want to hang onto the bag until next Christmas. And yes, I plan to use the leftover green M&Ms for St Patrick's Day cookies.

As you can see from the pictures, this kept the cookie cutter shape okay but it did spread out enough that I wouldn't trust it with a cookie stamp if I want to keep the stamped impressions clear. From a taste perspective, it was fine and had the pure clean taste of butter and sugar as befitting a sugar cookie without it being overly sweet. For thinner cookies, it makes a nice "snap" and has some chewiness. Personally I didn't love the M&Ms on it as I prefer my sugar or butter cookies plain without the addition of chocolate. But for the Valentine's version, hopefully the troops, who might not always get M&Ms on their deployment, will like it.