Sugar Cookies
The classic cut out cookie: tender edges, soft centers, and a clean vanilla sweetness that takes icing beautifully. One simple dough, every cutter shape you own.
The whole recipe in 60 seconds
Sugar Cookies, in 5 ideas
- Soft butter, briefly beaten. Creaming soft butter just to fluffy gives tender cookies; melted butter or long overbeating makes them spread thin and greasy.
- A short chill keeps the shapes honest. Thirty minutes firms the dough so stars stay stars and trees stay trees.
- Thickness is the texture dial. A quarter inch bakes up soft in the middle; roll the same dough thinner and it turns crisp. Choose per batch.
- Take them out pale. Sugar cookies should barely color. Carryover heat finishes them on the tray, and the centers stay soft.
- Vanilla carries the flavor. There is nowhere to hide in a plain cookie, so use the good extract, and do not skip the salt.
What you need
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
- Colored sugar or royal icing, for decorating
How to make it
Method
Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg, the vanilla, and the almond extract if using, until smooth.
Add the dry ingredients and mix on low just until the flour disappears. Stop there; overmixing makes cookies tough.
Divide the dough in half, flatten into disks, wrap, and chill for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until firm but still rollable.
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Roll one disk to 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface, or between two sheets of parchment.
Cut out your shapes and place them 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with colored sugar now if you are not icing them later.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are just set and the bottoms are barely golden. Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then move to a rack, and ice once fully cool.
Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment and you can skip the extra flour entirely: no tough, floury bottoms, and the counter stays clean.