Hey guys! Today I’m back with another post in my serious of – Let’s talk about – baking basics, sugar cookies! Which just so happens to be my fav cookie. Not only are sugar cookies my favorite on the yumminess scale, I really have fun making them. They are so popular this time of year, so I thought this would be a good time to share.
I’ve spent the past few years experimenting with my process and getting them just right. I know I’m not alone here because sugar cookies are always at the very top of my most asked questions, everybody wants to know how I get them to keep their shape, and how they are so soft and light in color. The answer is a routine of little tricks, and a great sugar cookie recipe! Once you’ve got it down, it doesn’t take much extra time, and it’s not hard at all. It’s just a matter of combining a great cookie dough with a few special steps and attention to detail. Of course there are lot’s of different variations of how to get great sugar cookies, this is just how I do of course. Alright now let’s get rolling…(cheesy pun intended). ;)
First we’ll start with a great recipe. I’ve tried a lot of rolled sugar cookie recipes. And I use a few different depending on what I am doing…but my all time favorite rolled sugar cookie recipe is from Glorious treats found here. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and light, rolls perfectly, bakes nicely, stays soft, freezes well, decorates great,…and of course it’s pretty easy!
Here’s what you will need:
3 cups flour
1 TSP baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 TSP vanilla extract (I use clear)
**I GENERALLY AM ABLE TO MAKE 18-24 COOKIES PER BATCH OF DOUGH. HOWEVER, THIS VARIES WITH EACH PERSON DEPENDING ON THE THICKNESS OF DOUGH THEY USED AND THE SIZE OF THE CUTTER**
**THIS RECIPE WORKS BEST MADE IN A KITCHEN MIXER, BUT CAN BE MADE WITHOUT**
About a half hour before I pull out my butter and egg and let them sit on the counter. You don’t want to over soften your butter. If you forget do not stick it in the microwave. Just chop it up in several little pieces before starting…because I tend to not plan my baking, I do this a lot :).
Step 1: In a separate mixing bowl whisk together flour and baking powder.
Step 2: In the bowl of a kitchen mixer, beat together unsalted butter and sugar. Once mixed well, add in egg. Mix again, then add in vanilla. I like to use my Kitchen aid and dough hook.
Step 3: Slowly add in flour mixture about a cup at a time. Mix until dough forms and begins to clump together. If your dough is still crumbly, keep mixing! My dough starts out crumbly and then comes together to form a really nice dough!
Step 4: Gather up dough and knead it with hands until it’s nice and smooth (if needed). Roll it into a ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and place in fridge to chill. I like to let min chill about 20 minutes. You will want it to be kind of firm but not hard. If it’s too hard…just leave it out on the counter for just a little bit until it softens up. Then you can work it a little bit to soften it back up. Even if it’s rock hard it will come back to a nice workable dough – you can speed up the process by breaking it in two and kneading it until it gets softer.
Now that you have your dough it’s time for the fun part!
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 and line a large cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper. Another option is to use the silicone baking mats made especially for treats like this! I personally have had them on my list forever, but just haven’t baked with them yet! Many bakers I know swear by theirs…but parchment paper will do the trick. Maybe santa will bring me some this year ;). **update- I santa did bring me one! I do use it and it works great, but since I only have one I also rely on my good old parchment paper!**
Step 2: Roll out the dough. I like to do so in between a lightly flour dusted sheet of parchment paper (on bottom) and wax paper (on top). You can use two sheet of wax paper or parchment paper if you would like. The purpose of the papers is it keeps the dough very smooth, leaving no marks from the rolling pin. The reason why I use one of each is I like the flexibility of the wax paper on top and I like the parchment paper on bottom because it’s heavier and if I am cutting a difficult shape I can bake right on the paper that it was cut on after removing excess dough.
The other thing you will notice is my rolling pin. I adore this rolling pin. The spacers allow my dough to roll perfectly even, and there are three different thicknesses to chose from. Before I bought this rolling pin however, I simply laid two dowel rods on each side of the dough and rolled the rolling pin over them to make a guide, cheap and works like a charm. If I want a thick cookies (like these) I use the 3/8 guide (or dowel rods) or for a bit thinner cookie I use the 1/4 guide (or dowel rods).
Just one more thing. The wax paper can wrinkle and leave marks on the dough. When I first lay my ball of dough down I use my hands and push it flat just a bit, then lay my wax paper over, so my rolling pin can then roll it out smooth. Whew…did you catch all that?
Step 3: Cut out cookies. Once my dough is rolled out I use my cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. If the cookies are sticking in the cutter you can lightly dust it with flour to help. For the most part the cookies will stay right in the dough where you cut them. Once your done cutting all the cookies, tear away the excess dough. Then you can gently lift the cookies by pulling up the edge of the parchment paper and gently transferring the cookie from the paper to your lined baking sheet with my hand. Another way of doing this is simply cutting the shapes out where they will need to be to bake, then remove the dough and bake right on the sheet. This keeps the cookies from stretching at all BUT it limits the amount of dough you can use the first round. And the less times a dough has been rolled the better. So unless I’m cutting a really delicate cookie, I just carefully transfer them.
Step 4: Once cut out and laid on a cookie sheet place the cookie sheet in the freezer for about 2-4 minutes depending on the size. This really helps the cookies keep their shape. Once they have chilled for a few pop them in the oven. Baking times really really depend on size of cookie. These cookies were about 2.5 inches and baked perfectly at 7 minutes. Simply turn your oven light on and start the timer for six minutes. Check them then and add a minute or two as needed. I like my cookies to be really soft so I pull them about just when I notice the very the “moist” look of the dough is gone on top or if I notice any bit of golden on the bottom. I am a burn-a-phob so I like to pull them out when they are just baked.
Step 5: After removing them from the oven I let them sit on the warm pan for a minute or two. This gives them a minute to firm up and bakes just a bit more…which helps since I pull them out so soon! Then I carefully grab the edges of the parchment paper and slide them off, parchment paper and all, onto wire cooling racks. It helps SO much to pull them off still on the parchment paper. Using a spatula often squishes them, or even breaks them.
Step 6: Once the cookies are cool I use a spatula and gently stack them as I bake more.
Once you’ve got this process down it won’t seem complicated at all. Those extra steps are completely routine for me now. It’s important to get a “grove” down if your baking lots and lots of them. This past week I baked over 12 dozen sugar cookies. When doing this many I bake while the kiddos are sleeping of course and I find a rhythm. When the timer on the oven hits 2 minutes I would pop the next tray of cookies in the freezer. Then when the time went off I would pull the baked cookies out, let them sit on the stove a minute to firm up, pull the cookies out of the freezer, place them in the over, reset the timer, arrange the previously cooled cookies on the cooling rack to make more room, pull the hot cookies off the pan and onto the cooling rack…..then I would go back to rolling out cookies and placing them on cookie sheets. Until the timer hit 2 minutes…then I would start the process again. It might seem a little crazy to read but it’s really not that complicated. Like I said just a few extra steps and a routine. Soon you’ll be cranking out beautiful perfectly shaped sugar cookies. This time around every single cookie in my 12 dozen turned out, no over baking, no breaks, not even a kind of misshapen one. My husband, quality control, was devastated. Poor guy. You should have seen his face when he learned they were all going straight to the freezer…oh man.
A few more things.
Bake similar sized cookies together. If you have a tiny cookie and a large cookie the smaller one is sure to over bake.
Less flour is better. With this process there is really no need to go crazy on flour (yay!) just dust your parchment paper/wax paper lightly and your good to go.
If you have a cutter that’s sticking especially due to small parts, rub a little bit of flour on it.
If your in a time pinch, you can let the dough chill in the freezer for about 5 minutes.
New dough is best. Try to cut out as many as you can each time you roll the dough out.
It’s best to wait a day after they are baked, as sometimes oil leaks through to the icing.
Store cookies in an airtight container, and decorate within a week.
To freeze cookies simply stack in an airtight container and freeze for up to a month.
There are many awesome cookie decorators out there, for more information and lot’s of help decorating visit some of these sites:
Sugarbelle
Munchkin Munchies
Glorious Treats
The Decorated Cookie
If you have any awesome tricks that work for you, please share…I’d love to give them a try!
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 TSP baking powder
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 TSP vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a separate bowl whisk together flour and baking powder.
- Beat together unsalted butter and sugar. Once mixed well, add in egg. Mix again, then add in vanilla. I like to use my Kitchen aid and dough hook.
- Slowly add in flour mixture about a cup at a time. Mix until dough forms and begins to clump together.
- Gather up dough and knead it with hands until it's nice and smooth. Roll it into a ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and place in fridge to chill. I like to let min chill about 20-40 minutes. You will want it to be kind of firm but not hard. If it's too hard...just leave it out on the counter for just a little bit until it softens up. Then you can work it a little bit to soften it back up.
- Bake at 350, time will depend on cookies size and thickness. Normally between 7-11 minutes.
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I’m going to try this. I cannot make this type of rolled cookie to save my soul. I usually make a “cake style” cookie (Banana Chocolate Chip). But decorated sugar cookies just says Christmas to me!
Good day! Does the rate of your posting depend on something or you compose blog articles when you have an inspiration or free time on that? Waiting forward to hear from you.
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe. You explain clearly and well. I appreciate your sharing your expertise with us.
You’re welcome! :)
I’m just getting into cookie decorating – mostly for my 6 grandkids. I have read thru many blogs and they all say that you can freeze the cookies for decorating later. Have you or anyone had any experience freezing the dough and then baking the cookies? I prefer the cookies to be freshly baked but I wanted to know if anyone found this to be successful.
Hello there! I honestly have never froze the dough to bake at a later date. I did a little googling and it seems that people have great success freezing cooie dough! (http://baking.about.com/od/cookies/qt/freezingdough.htm) I can tell you however, with this particular recipe I have had fantastic experience freezing the baked cookies! I just recently froze dozens and dozens of these cookies over Christmas, and every time I would pull some out I would I would always taste test. Each time I was totally amazed at how fresh they tasted! I couldn’t tell a difference at all! I have also been playing around with freezing decorated cookies. I know a lot of people complain about spots forming once thawed. This last time I left the cookies out to dry a bit longer then normal then froze loose in a container, layered with wax paper. When I pulled them out I laid them on a paper towel and they were perfect! Hope that helps a bit, sorry I didn’t have better info on freezing the dough myself.
Thanks Toni! I wish I had tons of freezer space to bake the cookies in advance – it would certainly be a time saver to cook a couple of pans each evening. Unfortunately I just don’t have the space to layer the cookies in the containers and then freeze them, whereas a couple of “pillows” of frozen dough can be stuffed in pretty easily.
I think I will clean out the freezer tho!
hi crystal just wanted to share that i made sugar cookie wedding dresses for my daughters wedding, i froze decorated cookies and undecorated cookies for two months in zip lock bags and the boxed them. guest at the wedding commented that they were the best sugar cookies and the softest they had ever tasted.
Fantastic! Thanks of sharing :).
I have a sugar cookie business and I have frozen my dough a lot. But be sure to freeze it right away to preserve the baking soda/powder (Whichever you use) chemistry. If you leave it in your fridge for very long (I found about 4 days max), that the chemistry’s purpose tends to wear off and you will end up with really dense sugar cookies. I would probably say the dough in the freezer will be fine for about 2 months. Hope that helps!
And I also freeze already baked cookies a lot as well. That is a HUGE time saver!
Thank you for the recipe. I baked these today. The baking time should be 10 minutes if baking at 350 degrees and in a conventional oven else the outside crust is done but inside is unbaked. :(
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by! The amount of time each cookie needs to be baked will vary greatly depending on your oven, cookie sheets, liner, cookie thickness, ect. ect. In this scenarios I baked mine for about 7 minutes and they were perfectly cooked inside and out. Since this post was featuring the technique and tricks of baking great rolled cookies I did not give it a set time. Step 4 will give you a little more info on adjusting your time to get the cookies just right! Happy baking :).
TIP:
If you use powdered sugar instead of flour for dusting surfaces it doesn’t dry out your cookies. Thanks for this recipe!! I can’t wait to try it!!
Like many people, I’m always looking for that perfect roll out cookie and keep trying recipes. This one is easy to make, and roll out. The flavor, when baked, is excellent! I made jelly sandwich cookies, cutting a little heart shape into the top cookie, where the raspberry jam showed through. I wanted to send a pic but couldn’t find your email address.
Hi Annie! I’m glad you enjoyed the cookies, I really love this recipe. I would love to see a picture, just click on the “say hello” link on the sidebar to the right and it will pop up for you to send a message :)
Where did you get the stickers “{flour}” for your jar? I have those jars and would love to have stickers for them. :)
if you look up flour vinyl on etsy.com there are many different options for vinyl stickers.
Hey Stacey! I actually cut the wording out in Vinyl with my Cricut cutting machine and then used it as a stencil to paint it on. :)
That rolling pin is awesome. I’m in the market for a new one.
My friends always ask me how I get my cookies so perfectly shaped. I roll my dough between a couple a couple sheets of parchement paper and use dowels I picked up at Home Depot for a few cents in order to get the perfect thickness. The only thing I do differently is I roll my dough out while it’s still soft, then put the rolled dough in the freezer, then cut my cookies out. This works well for little tiny shapes, like the kind that are supposed to be used for fondant. Just wanted to throw that out there.
That’s a great idea for small cutters! Thanks for the idea!
These cookie look delicious! I want to make them so bad because my husband loves sugar cookies. Unfortunately I don’t have parchment paper or silicon baking sheets. Is there another alternative? I have dark pans that are supposedly non stick but you never know. And I have lighter pans. I usually end up using Pam but I’m worried about ruining the integrity of the cookies? I don’t know I’m new to this whole baking thing :) let me know!
What kind of flour should I use? All-purpose?
Yes ma’am :)
Do you have to use unsalted butter? What would the results be if i used salted butter?
Thanks :)
It will be fine! Just a little less sweet. :)
How many cookies does one batch of dough make?
Thanks!
Hi Cathy! This is a really tricky question to answer because every batch will make a different amount depending on how thick you roll your cookies and how big the cutter is.I can generally get 2-3 dozen out of this recipe with a average size cutter. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific!
Nice recipe. Very similar to Wilton’s Vanilla Sugar Cookie On A Stick, yum.
I made this cookie recipe to try it out this week and was wondering why there was no salt listed in the ingredients. I find salt tends to balance out the sweetness in other recipes and although this recipe didn’t seem overly sweet, I was just curious if the salt was removed to keep the chemistry of the batter from changing or if it was just for flavor. Thanks for the info.
Hi Clarissa! I do not think that a small amount of salt would change this recipe at all! Also, you can use regular salted butter if you would like. I personally feel that this sugar cookie is not too sweet and has a nice soft flavor so I prefer it without the salt :)
I just mixed up some of this dough! I don’t have a great mixer- so I ended up finishing it off by hand- but I love the way it turned out! I even colored it red (using gel colors) for Valentine’s Day. I’m going to cut them into heart shapes to make sandwich cookies. It’s so hard to do it with regular rolled cookie dough sometimes because they have a tendency to spread a bit (even if they aren’t supposed to!). I added more vanilla than it called for because I wanted them to have a strong vanilla flavor- but I think they’re going to turn out fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!
Awesome! Glad to hear you like it as much as me, don’t forget to send me pictures of your cute cookies! Love seeing other’s work :).
I made these cookies on Saturday night so the kids could decorate them for Valentine’s Day. I got three dozen out of the recipe, but they were way too thin. I thought they needed to be a little sweeter as well, but don’t dare adding sugar next time as the dough was VERY crumbly and it took about 5 minutes to put it all together into one big piece to put in the fridge. I think more sugar would make the dough even more crumbly. The cookies also have a weird smell to me – a playdough like smell. I could kind of taste the smell too. Does that even make sense? Haha! Anyways, I will try this recipe again, but might try a few different things to make the dough not so crumbly.
Hi Kayleigh! I am so sorry you’re having a bad experience with the recipe :(. You can sweeten the cookies up a bit by adding more vanilla to strengthen the flavor. For the thickness in this photo I used a 3/8in guide, but 1/2in works well too. I honestly can’t imagine they would bake well at higher then a half inch. I’m really stumped on the crumbly part…I have honestly made this recipe over 100 times in several different part of the country even, and I have never had anything other then a great rolling dough and it has never smelled funny either. I wonder if maybe one of your ingredients was pasted it date or expirations? This dough should a very soft but sweet smell. The only thing I can think of that it might have been crumbly is maybe it wasn’t left to mix long enough? Also leaving it chill for longer in the fridge also helps with dry dough. Again, I am sorry you had complications with the dough and if you try it again let me know if it works out!
Are there any adjustments I need to make for high altitude? I’m at about 5,000 ft above sea level. Thanks!
Hi Marisa! I am so sorry but I honestly do not have a credible answer for you. I do not have experience with this particular recipe at that altitude. Due to our military status I can tell you we have moved around lots in the last few years and I have baked these same cookies all over the US without a problem! We are currently only 1,700 feet above sea level right now, so we are no where near you guys! If I can find a better answer I will be sure to let you know.
I live at about 5,000 ft and make a very similar recipe to this often. I never have an issue. I even make them without eggs sometime because I have kids who are allergic and they turn out beautifully.
I just tried this recipe today to make heart shaped cookies for my husband. His favorite is rolled sugar cookies, kind of a big kid.
The recipe worked out fairly well, however it seemed too dry. When I compared it to other recipes this one was shy on eggs, so I added an additional egg and that helped immensely. The tips for using the thickness guides and rolling between a layer of parchment and waxed paper worked beautifully! I was very pleased with how perfectly they turned out. Thank you for sharing!
No problem, I wonder if possibly the humidity in the air might cause that? Mine is always a really great texture, however, if I ever have a problem with dough I have found a bit of chilling int he refrigerator helps out with that a lot! Thanks!
These look awesome! {-smile-} I noticed your photo of ingredients.. have you ever seen of/heard of/tried Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla? It’s top of the line. Try it if you haven’t. Yumm.
I have heard of it, and I will definitely have to put it on my list to try! I explain a lot in my posts that I often stick with easy to obtain and name brand items, due to the fact that we are military and find ourselves in new locations ever year or two…and my blog’s goal is to help provide easy tasty yet adorable treats for life’s celebrations. So I like to use ingredients I like, that I know my readers can also get their hands on. Thanks for the recommendation!!
As a Brit. I measure by weight – do you melt your butter to get it into a cup? Any chance of also giving ingredients in ounces/grams for your European/British followers?
Hi there! 1 cup of butter is equivalent to 8oz, each stick is generally 4oz. You definitely do not want to melt the butter, it will change the entire structure of the dough ;). I am not sure I will always be able to over conversions for my awesome readers across the ocean, but I will see what I can do! Thanks!
What position do you place your oven racks when baking and will baking more than one pan at a time cause the cookies to bake unevenly?
I am super picky so I only bake one cookie sheet at a time, just in case! lol. I do keep my racks in the very center of the oven. If both oven racks are close tot he center of the oven it should not have an uneven effect on your cookies. What you do want to watch out for is baking different size cookies at the same time. I always bake same size cookies with each other to insure they will all bake the same amount! Hope that helps :).
Hi, how many cookies does this recipe make?
Thanks so much for sharing this. I had signed up to provide sugar cookies for my girl’s preschool class to decorate for their Valentine’s party – these were perfect!
Made these tonight for my oldest son and his sweetie for Valentine’s day. I will gift them with the cutter I used, a Valentine kitchen towel along with a copy of your recipie. They look delish. Sad I cannot taste, eating low carb these days but the smell wonderful! :-)
Oh my goodness!! This really is the best sugar cookie recipe!! Thank you so much for sharing! I just got done making 30 heart shaped for my daughters kindergarten class =)
Thank you for the great recipe! I live in Thailand and cookies NEVER turn out right here due to the high humidity. I was worried, but decided to give these a try. I wasn’t able to follow all your techniques (my freezer is way to small to hold a tray of cookies – even a plate of cookies!) but popping them in and out of the fridge and rolling between sheets of parchment were great ideas. I also didn’t have any dowels (or the cool rolling pin that you have!) but I do have MANY pens for crafts. I used a couple of triangle shaped pens for height and the cookies were PERFECT! Thank you for letting me give beautiful valentine cookie for a change!
Where did you find your rolling pin?
Thanks,
Christi
Hello Christi! I actually purchased this rolling pin and Country Sweetart Kitchen. The link located within the post :).
This recipe is great! Thanks for sharing it! Only one problem… I followed the instructions and used only a teaspoon of baking powder but my cookies are not as flat as yours, they raised a bit which is a concern when I will try to decorate them. Any tip would be much appreciate! Thanks again!
Easter is around the corner, I bought the cutest little rabbit cutter and the Grandkids are here so it’s Cookie Time! I pinned your recipe a while back and now I’m giving it a go with the kids, we’ll decorate with coloured sugar and enjoy all week. Hopefully there’s some left when their Dad comes to pick them up! lol
I simply cannot *wait* to try your cookie recipe. When I saw your photo, I was reminded that, depending upon the circumference of your finished cookies, a thoroughly cleaned Pringles canister makes a great container/gift presentation for round cookies. Just wrap the outside of the container with some really cute scrapbook paper and transform it into a wonderful gift! I will, for sure, be making these soon! Thanks again for sharing!! =)
I made these cookies today and they turned out beautifully. Thanks for the awesome recipe. My kids are decorating them for Easter. The taste is great without icing.
Awesome!
Is it a tablespoon or teaspoon? They taste great, just a touch flat!
I used this recipe as a base for our fruit pizzas this mothers day. Thanks for a great recipe http://katescreativekitchen.blogspot.ca/2013/05/mini-fruit-pizza.html
Awesome we LOVE fruit pizzas in the summer and I have been wanting to try mini ones for awhile now – they look great, awesome job!