Looking for a particular sugar cookie

Make them in a cool kitchen (and use a Silpat if you have one), because the butter quantity makes them tempermental.

INGREDIENTS

60 cookies

• 340 g butter, softened
• 400 g white sugar
• 4 eggs (~220 g)
• 3 ml vanilla extract
• 2 ml almond extract 
• zest of 1 lemon
• 625 g all-purpose flour
• 9 g baking powder
• 6 g salt

30 cookies

• 170 g butter, softened
• 200 g white sugar
• 2 eggs (~110 g)
• 2 ml vanilla extract
• 1 ml almond extract
• zest of 1 lemon
• 310 g all-purpose flour
• 5 g baking powder
• 3 g salt

DIRECTIONS

• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, vanilla, almond, and lemon zest. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least two hours (or overnight).
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on cookie sheets lined with parchment.
• Bake 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

MISCELLANEOUS TIPS

• They're too soft at 8 minutes for my liking. I like them crunchy, so bake for 10-12. If you like soft cookies, use 6 to 8 minutes baking time. They're crunchy (like I like them) when the edges start to brown.
• I haven't bothered with an overnight rest, but that would probably work even better. One hour is insufficent for my refrigerator, which I keep at 40 F (1 degree below sleepytime for yeasts).
• Once you mix the dough, spread it out into a rectangle on a Silpat (or plastic wrap) to about 2/3" thick before refrigerating. It's much easier to roll out at 2/3" thick than from a blob of dough in a bowl. It's similar to sweet pastry/pie dough in this regard.
• The very high butter content means you have work very quickly in a cold kitchen–rather hard to do when you're oven is preheating to 400 F, huh?
• If you wish to decorate them with coloured sugar(s), brush cookies with water and then generously sprinkle with (coloured) granulated sugar(s) before baking.
• Use a Silpat (silicone mat)–if you have one–when rolling and cutting the cookie dough. Makes rolling, cutting, and transferring to parchment easier. I suppose you could just bake on the Silpat. I'll try that next time (or when I buy several smaller Silpats).
• I use a pizza cutter to transfer the cookies from Silpat to parchment. Much easier than using your fingers, which are too warm by about 65 degrees. A pastry/dough scraper would work well too. You can also use polyethylene gloves (wasteful, I know) to limit the heat transfer from your fingers to the pastry. Neat trick I learned from a pastry chef when he taught me puff and croissant.
• If you're making 60 cookies, remove only 1/4 of the dough from the refrigerator at a time. If making 30 cookies, remove 1/2 of the dough at a time. Why? They melt fast at room temp.
• If the dough starts to fall apart (which it will do in less than 5 minutes), put it back in the refrigerator/freezer until it firms up. Re-roll as necessary.
• Bake them on parchment paper instead of directly on an ungreased cookie sheet so you can remove them from the cookie sheet immediately out of the oven. They tend to crack if you cool them on the cookie sheet.
• Resist the temptation to bake more than one pan at a time. You can do so, but the bottom pan will bake/brown unevenly and/or burn.