For some reason, when we do cookies for the holidays, the baking gets out of control!  Megan is a crazy baking machine!  She started baking early Saturday morning, baked through the day, when I stepped in and helped to decorate, then we were delivering them into the night.  After we made up the planned boxes and plates, we ended up with dozens of cookies left.  Then I discovered that Scott had ALSO ordered cookies from the YW Camp Valentine Cookie Fund-raiser…3 of them, and they are GINORMOUS!…I suggested and with Megan's agreement, that it might be nice to take some of the cookies to our respective Relief Society meetings, rather than leave them all at home where we would eventually have to eat them.  Susie also brought some cookies and the ladies were all excited for a little sugar to accompany the sweet lesson given by Tiffany.  As per request, here is the recipe again, this time with a Valentine theme!

Aunt Margy's Sugar Cookies

(Good for decorating!)

1 cup all vegetable shortening

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla

3 cups sifted flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Cream sugar and shortening.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Sift flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture.  The dough will be soft and a little sticky.  Refrigerate, overnight is preferred.  It is much easier to work with the dough when it is chilled, so once you are ready to bake, take out a chunk and put the rest back into the frig until you are ready to work with it.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Flour the bottom of a cookie sheet and roll the dough onto it.  Cut shapes, removing the excess dough; return excess to the bowl in the frig.  Leave a little space in between the cut out shapes.  Depending on how thick you roll the dough, the shape may spread as it cooks, loosing it's original shape, so keep it under 1/4" thick.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges just barely start turning golden brown.

 
If you would like to color the dough, you can separate it into different bowls and add food color.  I would suggest the Wilton or another frosting type dye, not the more runny kind you get at the grocery store.  The more expensive dyes give you better color and don't make the frosting too runny.   These cookies also incorporate Wilton frosting – we really like the fondant writers!