Sugar Cookies

1 cup slightly softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

2 extra large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

4 (or 4 1/2 cups) flour

Cream the butter and both sugars together. If you have any brown sugar lumps, you should crush them up or pull them out. They make weird dents in your baked cookies. Add the eggs and the vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add the salt and baking powder and again with the mixing of the dough. 

Before you add the flour, let's have a little chat. Different altitudes need different amounts of flour. Differences in humidity will the change the amount of flour you should add. Is there a storm coming? That changes things. Add only 3 cups to begin with. Then add additional flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is no longer sticky. (This happens at about 4 cups of flour for me...except in the winter time when it happens at 3 1/2 cups flour.) That's when you should stop if you are going to chill the dough, or just wait for another day to bake it. If you are going to roll it out right away, add another half of a cup of flour so it will be thick enough to move from rolling out surface to your baking sheet. 

Bake at 350F. If you roll to 1/4" thick, bake for about 7 minutes. If you roll to 3/8" thick, bake for about 10 minutes.