I love Danish butter cookies (especially if they come in those cute keepsake cookie tins)! Here's a homemade butter cookie recipe that's just perfect for gift giving. Cut out these buttery treats from holiday themed cookie cutters or stampers for added fun!

Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder

Combine 1 cup butter, sugar and egg in large mixer bowl.Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy (1 to 2 minutes). Reduce speed to low; add flour, orange juice,1 tablespoon vanilla and baking powder. Beat until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes).

Divide dough into thirds; wrap in plastic food wrap.

Refrigerate until firm (2 to 3 hours or overnight).

Heat oven to 400°. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface,one-third at a time (keeping remaining dough refrigerated), to 1/8 to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with 2-inch cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Let stand 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely.

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Hallmark Magazine also has a downloadable cookie collection in PDF format which is a nice addition to your recipe box. It's a wonderful collection of cookies ranging from sugar cookies, pizelles, linzers, sandwich cookies, tea cookies, and speculaas among others. I've tried making the Farmhouse Chocolate Crinkles which by far is the best choco crinkle recipe I've ever tried. I remove the cookies out of the oven while the top is still moist and soft so the cookies will retain a lovely melty chocolatey texture. Don't wait for the top to harden or else the crinkle will be a disaster. Anyhoo, said crinkles got gobbled up fast before I can take a photograph of it!

And oh, yesterday I won a japanese embroidery book from Vicki's Holiday Surprise Give-away! Unbelievable. I've never been lucky in give-aways before! I think my good luck started when I won Cindy's cute ornament give-away a couple of weeks ago. Thank you Cindy and Vicki for the holiday giveaway love!

The sweetest surprise for today is a box of wonderful goodies-cute fabrics, trims, notions, chocs and inspiring items from my beautiful, crafty and ultra thoughtful friend and fellow Pinay Cathy! Thank you so much Cathy! You are a sweetie. Can't wait to create handstitched magic from the goodies you sent!

More holiday recipes tomorrow!