• To a large bowl, add the butter. Beat on medium high until butter is light and fluffy and paler in appearance.
• Sift in the powdered sugar. Slowly beat until combined.
• Add in the vanilla and almond extract. Beat until just combined. Then beat in the egg yolks one at a time.
• Sift in the cake flour and turn off mixer. Using a wooden spoon continue to mix by hand. Dough will be very dry and crumbly. Then pour dough out on to clean work surface. Begin lightly pressing dough in onto itself until it is no longer crumbly. Then form dough into a square.
• Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into four roughly equal pieces. Take 1 piece of the dough and wrap in cling wrap and put it into the refrigerator.

Coloring Dough

• For the 2nd piece of dough, take the cocoa powder and add a few drops of water and mix to form a medium thick paste. Add the cocoa paste onto piece of dough. Fold cocoa paste into dough until it is a uniform color brown. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate at least an hour.
• For the 3rd piece of dough, add a few drops of red food coloring, Mix dough until color is uniform. Add more food coloring to achieve desired shade of red or as needed. Refrigerate for an hour.
• For 4th piece of dough, add a few drops of green food coloring, Mix dough until color is uniform. Add more food coloring to achieve desired shade of green or as needed. Refrigerate for an hour.

Swirl Cookies (Spiral Pattern)

• Cut the red, green, and brown dough in half. Return the other halves to the refrigerator. Take each of the doughs you are working with and roll them to about ¼ of an inch thick using a rolling pin. (If dough gets too warm and breaks, return it back to the refrigerator.)
• Onto a sheet of cling wrap lay the rolled out green dough. Lay the red dough, on top of the green dough. Finally, lay the brown dough on top of the red and green dough. Using a knife, cut the edges of the doughs until they are uniform with each other.
• Using the cling wrap to help, begin rolling the dough up until it forms a cylinder. Pinch the seam of the dough closed. (If you have other color peeking under the seam of the green dough, cut it off, then pinch the green dough seam closed.) Refrigerate for another hour.

Christmas Present Cookies (Checker board Pattern)

• Take the remaining red and green dough from the refrigerator. Form each of them into rectangular cylinders close to the same size. Cut each other the cylinder into 9 equal sized pieces length-wise. They should look like long fries. (Note: the 9th piece must come from either the red or green dough, depending on what color makes up the outer squares.) Feel free to also take some extra dough from the plain dough to form the 9th piece and just color match the piece.
• Take 1 piece of the red dough and rub a side of the dough with egg white. Take a piece of the green and press it firmly for the red piece of dough. Repeat with each remaining piece of dough. You should have 4 dual colored pieces of dough and 1 lone red or green piece remaining.
• Using some more egg white as glue, begin laying the dual color piece of dough in which opposite colors overlap. This means a red should be paired with a green. Once all the other pieces are together, add the final piece. Wrap dough in cling wrap. Use your hands to form it into a perfect square. Return dough to refrigerator.

Stripe Cookies (Strip Pattern)

• Roll the remaining brown dough out until it is ¼ inch thick. Cut the plain dough in half. Form one half of the dough into a 1 inch wide circular cylinder, and put it back in the fridge.
• For the other half, roll it out to ¼ inch thick sheet.
• Onto some cling wrap, place the rolled out brown dough. On top of the brown dough add the plain dough. Clean up the side using knife by cutting dough sides evenly. Using your ruler or tape measure, mark the dough into 1 inch strips.
• Cute the stripes. Then place each dough layered slice on top of the other. Wrap in cling wrap. Press top of cookies a bit to make sure layers stick together. Return the dough to fridge.

Baking

• Preheat oven to 350℉. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• Slice cookies about ½ inch thick. If desired, Sprinkling some cookies with sparkling sugar.
• Bake on 350℉ for 15 minutes. Bottoms of cookies will be golden brown.
• Transfer to cooling rack.
• Enjoy!!