Old Fashioned Tea Cakes - cooking recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
1 cup butter or 1 cup margarine
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation

Cream butter and sugar.
Add egg.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
Add to first mixture.
Add vanilla.
Roll on floured board to about 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutter. (I use powdered sugar to roll out the cookies, it makes life a bit more fun for my kids). If the dough gets a little hard to work with (on the 2nd or 3rd rolling of \"scraps\"), form a ball and place it (wrapped) into the refrigerator for 10 minutes to let the dough firm back up.
Decorate with colored sugar and sprinkles if you want to do so before baking.
Bake 7 - 10 minute in oven, preheated to 350 degrees.
Allow the cookies to cool slightly before removing to a cooling rack with a flat metal spatula (pancake turner). Cool completely before decorating with icing.
I've tripled this recipe without any issue. If you scale up, keep most of the dough in the refrigerator and work a reasonable quantity at a time.