Shamrock cookies

My family is (very) Irish, and my mom had a celebratory dinner for St. Patrick's Day. I wanted to make a dessert, so I settled on making shamrock-shaped sugar cookies. Believe it or not, this was the first time I've made sugar cookies by myself (when I was little I frosted cookies, but I never made them from scratch on my own). These turned out really well (I received a lot of compliments on how great they tasted), and I had so much fun making them! My husband even helped me cut them out and frost them!

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients for cookies:

1 cup white sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

3 cups all-purpose flour

Ingredients for frosting:

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a large bowl, combine the sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg yolk. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour until well blended. Chill the dough for 8 hours, or overnight.

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8 inch thickness, refrigerating remaining dough until ready to use. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
  

• Bake for 7 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light and golden brown. Cool cookies completely before frosting. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Frost your cookies, and enjoy!