Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter or shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt



Cream butter and sugar, add eggs. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. You can roll out the dough and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, or you can do it the easy way and roll the dough into balls and flatten them on the cookie sheet with the bottom of a cup. Either way, bake them at 350 for 8-10 minutes (less time for cookie cutter cookies and more time for flattened balls since they will probably be thicker).

Icing:
Melt about a tsp of butter, add a little water and then add icing sugar until it reaches your desired icing thickness. You can add food colouring and sprinkles and whatnot. Ice and decorate the cookies once they've cooled.