Beat together butter & sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 6 minutes with a hand mixer. Beat in egg & vanilla. Reduce speed to low & add dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.
Divide dough into 4 different bowls. Add a couple of drops of color to each portion of dough. Form into disks. Chill disks, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
On a floured work surface, place dollops of colored cookie dough next to each other. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Don’t OVER ROLL cookie dough.
Using different leaf cookie cutters, cut out various leaf shapes. Cut out as many cookies as possible from dough with cutters and transfer to 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging cookies about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with coarse sugar if you wish.
Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until edges are golden, 10 to 12 minutes, do not overbake. Transfer to racks to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
You can just sprinkle with coarse sugar or if you prefer, glaze them as I did.
Because it just happens to be Halloween, I added a few ‘cinnamon sugar tortilla bats’ to my tray just for fun.