Butter cookies- and back to school!!!

For the last seven days, I have been inquiring every day for icing sugar, because I have this lovely recipe for thumbprint cookies that I want to try out. But it is out of stock, and continues to remain out of stock. Finally, my craving for cookies got the better of me, and I decided to whip up a batch of butter cookies, using my mother's tried and tested recipe.
Unfortunately, however, I got over ambitious and tried to make thumbprint cookies out of them. The cookies that looked so professional when they went into the oven, lost their shape completely during the process of baking, and I ended up with cookies that were more than just slightly oddly shaped. But they tasted great, and that's all I really care about.

100 gms sugar
100 gms butter
50 gms rice flour

100 gms maida
a pinch of salt
red colouring and rasberry essence (optional)

Method:
Preheat the oven at 175 degrees for about 10 minutes
Cream together sugar and butter
Add rice flour and beat well
Add maida, salt, essence and colouring and knead to a soft dough (without adding any water)
Roll it into balls, place on a baking tray taking care to leave space for them to spread, and bake for 12-15 minutes till golden brown on top.
Remove from oven, and cool before digging in!