Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:
2 Cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purposed flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Direction:
1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread 1/2 cup of sugar in a shallow baking dish for rolling. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter and the remaining sugar together with an electric mixer in a medium speed until light and fluffy; 3-6 minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then eggs, one at the time, until combined, about 30 seconds, scraping the bowl as needed.
3. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until combined. Give a few final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure that it's evenly combined.
4. Rolled 2 tablespoon of dough into balls (use wet hand), then roll in sugar to coat. Lay balls on the baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Flatten the cookies to 3/4 inch thickness with buttered and sugared bottom of drinking glass. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the flattened tops.
5. Baked cookies, one sheet at the time, until edges are set and begging to brown but centers are still soft and puffy, 10-12 minutes.
6. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes (this is very important), then serve warm or transfer to the cooling rack.

Variation:
Lemon poppy seed sugar cookies
Whisk 1 tablespoon poppy seeds into the flour mixture. Add 1 tablespoon grated fresh lemon zest to the dough with eggs.