Preheat the oven to 160°C (Gas mark 2/325°F). Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Pop the butter, sugar and vanilla extract into a large mixing bowl, then whisk together with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy.

Sieve in the flour.  Whisk again until the mixture comes together to form a dough (You may need to pull the dough together with your hands as it's quite crumbly).

Divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces, then colour each piece with a different gel food colouring of your choice - kneading the colour into the dough until evenly coloured. I used purple, pink, yellow and green for my cookies.

Roll one of the coloured doughes out on a lightly floured surface to around 1cm thick.  Using a cookie cutter, cut egg shapes from the dough. I used a small Easter egg themed plunger cutter which also presses a pretty design on the surface of the cookies.

Repeat with the remaining coloured doughs until you have an assortment of coloured Easter egg cookies.

Carefully transfer the cookies to the baking trays, then bake for around 12-15 minutes until the edges are just starting to brown.

After removing from the oven, leave the cookies to cool on the baking trays for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Be careful as these cookies are very soft and crumbly whilst still warm.