Instructions: Red, green, and yellow soft gel food paste colors

If you use a Christmas tree cookie cutter for example, you can use the green dough for the tree shaped cookie and make the dots in the middle of the green cookie, red and yellow, colorful cookies.

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt in bowl. Beat butter and sugar on medium high in bowl 3 minutes, until smooth. Beat in eggs and extracts. On low beat flour mixture and milk into butter mixture just until combined.

Divide dough into thirds, shape each third into ball. Place third in clean bowl. Add red color, beat until evenly colored. Shape into disk, wrap in plastic wrap, chill 2 hours or overnight. Clean bowl and beaters. Repeat with another third of dough, coloring it green and another third coloring it yellow. Cut green disk into fourths. Return three quarters of dough to refrigerator. Roll the one quarter dough 1/4 inch thick between waxed paper. Remove top sheet. Cut dough into desired shapes with cookie cutters, cut dots out of cookies with 3/4 inch round cookie or biscuit cutter. Invert whole piece of dough onto nonstick baking sheet. Remove waxed paper. Remove dots to nonstick baking sheet. Remove scraps, wrap, refrigerate, along with sheet of cookies and dots.

Do the same with yellow dough and red dough. Keep all unused dough and unbaked cookies and dots on baking sheet refrigerated. Interchange dots using a butter knife among holes in different colored cookies. Heat oven to 350 degrees, bake cookies 6 to 8 minutes, until edges just begin to brown. Cool cookies.

Repeat rolling, cutting, baking, using a quarter of dough at a time, then use refrigerated scraps.

Makes 5 dozen.

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