Sweetheart Sugar Cookies (Holland America)

14 tablespoons (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 drops vanilla extract

2 drops fresh lemon juice

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 6 minutes with a hand mixer. Beat in the egg, vanilla and lemon juice. Reduce the mixer speed to low and sift the flour and salt together over the egg mixture, beating until combined.

Form the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 6-inch round disk. Wrap the disks in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the middle. Remove one disk of dough from the refrigerator and use a well-floured rolling pin to roll it out ¼ inch thick on a well-floured work surface. (Alternatively, roll the dough between two sheets of wax paper, which allows you to easily rechill the dough if it becomes too soft to handle.) With a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible and transfer them to two ungreased baking sheets, spacing the cookies about 1 inch apart.

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until pale golden, 10 to 12 minutes. With a metal spatula, immediately transfer them to a rack placed over a sheet of wax paper and sprinkle them with confectioners’ sugar; cool completely.

Meanwhile, gather the dough scraps and chill until firm enough to reroll (reroll scraps only once). Be sure the baking sheets are cool before baking more batches on them.