Hanukkah Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg large egg

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk (or more)

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 dashs blue food coloring (up to 4)

Preparation

For cookies:Using electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until light.

Beat in egg, lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Add to butter mixture and stir until well combined. Divide dough into 3 pieces. Flatten each into disk. Wrap each in plastic and chill 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Roll out 1 dough piece on lightly floured surface to thickness of 1/8 inch. Using Hanukkah cookie cutters dipped into flour, cut out cookies. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheets, spacing evenly. Gather scraps, re-roll and cut out additional cookies, chilling dough if necessary. Bake until cookie edges are golden, about 10 minutes.

Transfer cookies to racks and cool. Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining dough pieces in batches.

For icing: Place sugar in bowl. Stir in 2 tablespoons milk and lemon juice. Add more milk if icing is too thick to pipe. Transfer half of icing to another bowl. Mix food coloring into half of icing.

Spoon plain and colored icings into separate pastry bags fitted with small round tips or into parchment cones.

Pipe icings decoratively onto cookies. Let stand until icing sets, about 2 hours.