1 stick (4 oz) butter
½ cup sugar
1 ¼ cups flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 egg beaten
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
Melt the butter and let cool. Sift together the sugar, flour and salt. Add the beaten egg and vanilla to the melted butter. Add the flour mixture and mix well. Refrigerate until chilled.
Once the dough is chilled preheat the oven to 350°.
Scoop a teaspoon of batter and form into a small ball. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. A half sheet pan will hold about a dozen cookies. Once the pan is full cover with plastic wrap and use a drinking glass with a flat bottom to flatten each ball into a cookie about 1 ½ inches in diameter. Remove the plastic. Top with sugar or pecans if desired. Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the pans and continue baking for 3 or 4 more minutes or until the edges brown slightly.
Prior to baking each cookie may be topped with a pecan half or sprinkled with turbinado sugar or sprinkled with red or green sanding sugar for Christmas.
Makes about 24 cookies.
Balls of dough ready to be pressed 
Pressing the dough 
Pan of pressed dough 
Dough with turbinado sugar 
Baked cookies 
Texture of baked cookie