What would the holidays be without a batch of freshly baked sugar cookies, just begging to be iced and decorated? Nothing adds quite the same fun and nostalgia as gathering with loved ones to bake and decorate cookies. It’s a festive and creative activity for all ages. Plus, you get to eat them afterwards!
Of course, baking is a science and measuring and weighing ingredients is important, but when it comes to sugar cookies, this is even more crucial because you are only working with 7-8 ingredients. The more spare and simple the ingredients, the more you should strive to use the best quality of ingredients that you can find and afford and measure them carefully. Fewer ingredients means that there are less ‘bells and whistles’ to distract, so simple ingredients need to stand out.
Chilling the dough is also crucial, so that the cut out shapes hold in the heat of the oven without expanding too much. Chilled dough is also easier to work with when you’re cutting and moving the cookies from cutting board to baking sheet.
I prefer soft cookies, so I roll my dough out to ¼ inch. It’s easy to do this if you have a rolling pin with adjustable and removable measuring rings that allow you to roll the dough to the exact thickness that you require.
A royal icing is generally preferred for these types of cookies, because it can easily be dyed to any color, and it hardens to hold the decoration and makes the cookies easy to store. I’m working on perfecting my royal icing recipe!
After experimenting with a couple of batches, the recipe that came out the best is the one I’m recording below:
- 2 and ¼ cups all purpose flour (plus flour to sprinkle for rolling)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt (I like to use fine sea salt)
- ¾ cup room temperature unsalted butter (European butter is great here!)
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large room temperature egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (the best you can afford)
- A dash of additional extract (optional) if you want to personalize your cookie flavor, such as peppermint, almond, or lemon
- Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt) together in a medium bowl
- Using the paddle attachment for a stand or hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on high speed until sugar granules are completely incorporated and the mixture is smooth and creamy, this will take about 2 minutes
- Add the wet ingredients (egg, vanilla extract and any additional extracts if using) to the creamed butter and sugar and beat on high speed 1 minute or until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed to incorporate everything
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until combined. If the dough feels too sticky or loose to roll, add flour 1 tablespoon at a time until it feels firmer
- Divide dough into 2 equal pieces and wrap each piece in plastic wrap and press down to flatten slightly into discs
- Refrigerate dough for a minimum of 2 hours. Dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days (great for planning ahead for baking with children so they won’t have to wait!)
- Once chilled, remove dough from the refrigerator and unwrap. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and roll to ¼ inch thickness with a floured rolling pin.
- Cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters, gathering scraps and re-rolling until all the dough is used. Place cookies 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, or until slightly brown around the edges.
- Allow cookies to set for a few minutes after removing from the oven and use a spatula to set the cookies on wire racks until completely cooled
- Frost cookies if desired with royal icing and decorate as you like.
- These cookies will stay fresh for around 5 days at room temperature, and up to 10 days when stored in the refrigerator.
Now on to perfecting my royal icing recipe!
–For more fun with Mikki and her passion for baking, read “The Christmas Cookie Conundrum.”