By Alison Roman
- Total Time
- 1½ hours, plus 2 hours' chilling
- Rating
- 4(2,862)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Everyone needs a good sugar cookie recipe. If you can master the very simple technique behind this one dough, you have several variations at your disposal, most likely without a trip to the grocery store.
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Ingredients
Yield:4½ dozen cookies
- 3½cups/510 grams all-purpose flour
- 1teaspoon baking powder
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- 1½cups/340 grams unsalted butter (3 sticks), at room temperature
- 1¼cups/250 grams granulated sugar
- 2large eggs
- 1teaspoon vanilla extract
- Frosting, glaze or royal icing
- Edible glitter or food-grade luster dust
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Preparation
Step
1
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
Step
2
In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium-high until the mixture is light, fluffy and pale, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down sides of the bowl, and add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, and beat until everything is well combined, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed.
Step
3
Add dry ingredients all at once, and mix on low speed just until incorporated.
Step
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Scrape dough out of bowl and divide it in half. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap, patting into a 1-inch-thick disk. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 5 days.
Step
5
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out dough, one disk at a time, on lightly floured parchment paper or work surface until it's about ⅛ inch thick. Create shapes, using a lightly floured cookie cutter. (Alternatively, using a knife, cut the dough into squares, rectangles or diamonds.) If at any point the dough becomes too soft to cut and cleanly remove from parchment paper, slide it onto a cookie sheet and chill for a few minutes in the freezer or refrigerator. Gather any dough scraps and combine them into a disk. Roll and repeat the cookie-cutting process, chilling as necessary.
Step
6
Place shapes onto parchment-lined baking sheets 1 inch apart and bake until cookie edges are lightly browned with sandy, pale centers, 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Cool the cookies on a rack, if you have one. Otherwise, let them cool on the pan. Decorate with a glaze, royal icing, frosting, glitter, food-grade luster dust or whatever you'd like. Don’t forget the sprinkles.
- Cookie dough can be made 5 days ahead and refrigerated. Cookies can be baked 2 days ahead, wrapped tightly and stored at room temperature.
Ratings
4
out of 5
2,862
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Cooking Notes
GillianPagel
This is very close to the recipe my mom used in her bakery. We made these without the baking powder. Since we are cutting out shapes we find no leavening results in cookies that keep their shape when baked. And they taste delicious. You can brush lightly with water and sprinkle with colored sugar crystals before baking.
Mary Rae Fouts
This recipe makes a fabulous drop sugar cookie. I made half of the recipe, with the exception of leaving the vanilla at 1 tsp, made 29 cookies. Chill dough for 20-30 minutes, form balls slightly smaller than a golf ball, roll in Sparkling Sugar, place on ungreased cookie sheet (no parchment needed), slightly flatten with 2 fingers.
Bake at 350 degrees for 14 - 16 minutes, rotate multiple sheets half way through time. Soft cookie with crunchy edge.
Jane
It is a Grandchild favorite for both cutting out with cookie cutters and especially decorating. It is very similar to an old Tupperware cookie cutter recipe. To have control of rolling out dough, I would suggest dividing dough in quarters versus halving. Also, a tiny bit of water can be added to the last bits of dough scraps to add moisture for rolling. Fun to make and delicious.
Cait
Really delicious and not overly sweet. This is a great cookie for frosting if you don't want the cookies to be painfully sweet at the end. (Without frosting, they're great for people who like less-sweet desserts.) Nice texture as well, and easy to cut with a cookie cutter. This is going to be my go-to sugar cookie from now on. A+.
marteycostello
I should have divided the dough in quarters, note to self! My dough was very soft, perhaps my eggs were larger. I found it helpful to roll the dough out between sheets of parchment, freeze it for a few minutes, and then cut out the cookies.
Kate
We followed this recipe as written with a kitchen scale for precision. My 4 year old and I made maple leaf cookies. The first batch came out of the oven with rounded edges. We put the next batch (baking tray and all) in the freezer for 20 minutes before baking. Presto! Beautiful sharp edges. The cookies are not too sweet and are perfect for icing. Make sure cookies are at least 1/8 inch thick or they will brown too quickly.
Limolady
Do you have the recipe for colored royal icing?
Megan
Perfect sugar cookie dough for decorating. I echo another commenter's idea to divide into quarters; it will give you enough time to roll and cut the dough before it gets too soft.
esther
340 grams is 3/4 of a pound or 3 sticks. A stick of butter is 1/2 cup. 3 sticks = 1 and 1/2 cups.
Nao
Came out well with Bob’s Mill Gluten Free Flour 1 to 1(I used butter and egg as directed) and longer baking time. But it way too sweet for me, I will try again with modified amount of sugar. Anyone who likes less sweet cookie then reduce the amount of sugar.
portabillie@gmail.com
Regarding the cups/grams of flour equivalency, I believe the gram measurement is incorrect as it relates to 3.5 cups. There are 227 grams to a cup. This, multiplied by 3.5 equals 794.5. I made the recipe with 795 grams of flour and it was perfect.
esther
there are 128 gms to a cup of flour. Flour is lighter than liquid.
Rick DeAngelis
I like to use grams in cooking and I noticed that 510 grams is about 4 and 1/4 cups and not 3 and 1/2 cups . So which is it? We'll see.
Beau
Great tasting recipe! However, made these exclusively for cookie cutter shapes and found it to be too much baking powder. I used about ¾ of a tsp and it was still to much. I would cut that down to about a ¼ tsp to insure the cookies hold the shape.
SusanE
Wonderful sugar cookies. Followed exactly as written. The dough rolled out beautifully and baked without puffing around the edges, thus holding the cut shapes. Valentine's cookie success! I'm saving this one for sure.
Renee
In the tropics the dough became so soft so quickly, I portion the dough into 8 balls, placed the balls into the freezer, then rolled each ball out, put the rolled disks into the freezer, cut smaller biscuits, back into the freezer - then finally baked when I had a full tray of biscuits to bake - so it added at least 1h30 onto the process. Biscuits tasted great - but have gone soggy in the humidity very quickly
Victoria
DEFINITELY cook at 350F - same timing. 325F makes pale sad cookies...
Charles A
I don’t bake often. So when I do, I like to weigh the ingredients when possible. So when adding the flour I used the amount specified in the recipe, 510 grams. What I found out later was this was 90 grams or 3/4 cups too much. For nearly all All-Purpose Flour one cup weighs 120 grams. As a result the cookie dough was too dry and hard to work with. While it would be best if the recipe was corrected, if you are referencing the ingredient weights, please beware of this discrepancy on the flour.
Leslee
Delicious cookies but because of the high butter content, they start melting very quickly. I was making them with my toddler granddaughter and you can’t rush that! I recommend that when you have scraps after cutting, to freeze them for a few minutes instead of refrigerating as the recipe recommends. You’ll have better success in them staying firm until you cut them.
Laura S
Good, simple, not too sweet, works well for cutting.
Jo
Made labradoodle cookies with this recipe. Great recipe
Perfect Cookies - Great With Stamps
These cookies are great. They don't even need icing to taste amazing. If you have stencils that stamp the top with a design they also work perfectly.
Nancy M
Cookies taste good, but with the amount of butter they were extremely difficult to roll out. The chilled dough began to melt even before I had the first bit of dough (1/4 of the batch) rolled and cut out. Had to keep cutouts intact on parchment and place in fridge before separating to place on cookie sheet. Placed cutout trays in freezer 20 minutes before baking and they lost their shape anyway. I will not be baking these again, but go back to my tried and true recipe that uses less butter.
Ananya
Are these soft or crisp?
giulia
Suggestions from reading comments: even if you half the recipe, maintain dose of vanilla extract; divide the dough in half before chilling. To help maintain the size: Chill again after cutting in shapes and before baking? Or skip baking powder?
lindsay
No baking powder
Acal
Second time making this and it was great again. After frosting they keep well and have a bit of moisture. Not a crunchy cookie once frosted but pleasantly tender.
Sonia
Everyone loves the taste of these cookies (and I kept the dough in the fridge for more than a week and it was still fine - even better maybe!)
Kris
Can you freeze dough for longer than 5 days?
dhwsmith
Added 1 tsp lemon flavoring and one heaping TB of lemon powder to half the dough. Gave cookies from that half a very nice lemon flavor.
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