I have received SO MANY requests in the past few weeks to post my sugar cookie recipe that I decided to prioritize writing this post (you’re welcome)!
A really good sugar cookie is surprisingly hard to find. The perfect sugar cookie should be soft and gooey in the inside, almost if you’re unsure it’s fully cooked, while maintaining a thin and slightly crisp golden brown”shell”.
And the icing! Never use FROSTING for a sugar cookie. It’s not a cake. You don’t want to hide the flavor with gooey sugar and flavoring. I also have the perfect icing recipe (lucky you) to share as well. It’s thin enough to compliment the cookie without overwhelming it, and it dries and sets quickly.
For this Christmas batch, I opted to keep the icing white / colorless and decorate with metallic colored sprinkles instead. However, you can easily add food coloring to the icing recipe. Just remember that if you’re adding a lot of food coloring (like to make the color extra dark), it’s going to make your icing runnier and harder to set. Add in a little bit more powdered sugar as needed to offset this.
This recipe makes about 4-5 dozen cookies. Feel free to double, triple or quadruple the measurements as needed!
You’ll need:
Sugar cookies
- 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups white sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Icing
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons whole milk
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, cream together softened butter and sugar until smooth. (I use my KitchenAid stand mixer with the beater attachment).
- Beat in eggs and vanilla. (Again, the KitchenAid stand mixer is ideal for this).
- Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt until combined. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least one hour, or up to overnight.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on a floured surface. Using cookie cutters, cut into shapes. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets (I use parchment paper-covered cookie sheets for the ultimate in no-mess baking).
- Bake cookies 6-8 minutes. For super soft, 6 minutes. If you like them crispy, 8-9 minutes.
- Cool completely before decorating with icing.
For icing: Simply mix powdered sugar, vanilla and milk (1 tablespoon at a time) until spreadable. Feel free to add food coloring if desired, but please see note above. Remember that icing will set relatively quickly, so don’t prepare it until you’re ready to decorate.
If you try out this recipe at home, PLEASE let me know how it goes! This is by far one of my all-time favorite recipes.