Cut-Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

Sugar Cookies

My personal recipe, after a decade Halloween tradition

INGREDIENTS

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup White Sugar

1 & 3/4 cup Powder (icing) Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Almond extract

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

4 cups All-Purpose Flour

*As with any cookie dough, how much the cookie spreads is mainly impacted by the temperature of the dough as a result of the butter. The softer the butter is when mixing the longer you should let chill in the refrigerator.

DIRECTIONS

Preparing the Dough

  1. Cream butter on its own a bit before adding the sugars and blending well

  2. Add eggs, blending 1 in at a time

  3. Mix in extracts, salt and baking powder

  4. Gradually blend in flour

  5. Once evenly mixed switch to your hands for brining the dough together

  6. Divide into three disks wrapped in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge

*Can be made ahead and left to chill overnight.

Cutting-out and Baking the Cookies

  1. Preheat oven to 375F

  2. Working with one disc at a time, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 1-2 cm thick…I just eyeball this till I think it looks good

  3. Cut shapes out and place spaced out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

  4. Bake 6-9 min (For my oven 8 is ideal, but you will need to test yourself with the first batch)

Notes on how to get a quick rotating system down

  • I have two trays going so as soon as one is done I am switching in the next

  • After the first tray comes out, I let it cool for about a minute before using a spatula to carefully transfer the cookies onto a different surface to cool (Tray, plate or wax paper on counter)

  • Once cooled I can stack the cookies by shape to make room for next round

  • I will cut out the cookies for replenishing the cookie sheet, but I won’t place on the sheet until there is about a minute before I need to switch the trays. This is because the hot pan will cause the dough to soften before entering the oven and can impact the shape.

  • The dough as been made and is used chilled to minimize the amount of flour needed to to roll out the cookies…too much added flour will affect your cookie

  • When rolling out the dough, I will roll the disc out once; cut out as many shapes; take the scraps and roll out once more; then wrapping the last remaining scraps and putting back in the fridge.

  • At the end I take the scraps collected from repeating this with all 3 disks and will roll out and use until finished. This ensures the scraps are not over recycled, taking in too much flour, and ensures a more consistent cookie throughout.

After a decade + of making holiday sugar cookies…I am still working on getting the icing right and will post separately my advise and struggles.

Kennedy MaidmentComment