Our favourite sugar cookie recipe yields a workable dough you may remodel into cutouts that maintain their form within the warmth of the oven and emerge crisp-yet-tender canvases, prepared for adorning. We love this Simple Sugar Cookie Icing (a riff on royal icing, made with powdered sugar and egg whites) tinted with vibrant meals coloring powder for gilding the tops of the buttery cookies. For those who’d like to tug out all of the stops for a adorning occasion, load up on sanding sugars, sprinkles, and dragées. Or neglect all that and switch them into sandwiches crammed with chocolate buttercream or cream cheese frosting as a substitute.
To start out, you’ll cream butter and granulated sugar simply to mix, and not till it’s “gentle and fluffy.” Not like many cookie recipes, you don’t need to whip an excessive amount of air into the butter, which may make the cookies unfold—not the objective right here. And sure, you’re utilizing chilled butter, not room temperature, making the entire course of go a lot sooner. Add a little bit peppermint or almond extract to the cookie batter in case you’d prefer to play with the flavors, however not more than ¼ tsp. of both; they’re rather more potent than vanilla.
Rolling out your dough between two sheets of parchment (or silicone baking mats) ensures this straightforward sugar cookie recipe is as supreme (and simply made) as its identify suggests, as thinly rolled cookie dough can keep on with even the coldest counter tops. To make your work and cleanup simpler, line your cookie sheets with extra parchment, however don’t be tempted to swap in silicone for the baking. Whereas we’re all for no waste, super-slippery silicone mats encourage spreading, which, once more, isn’t the objective right here.
If adorning with sanding sugar, sprinkle it on the unbaked cookies earlier than they go into the oven. If adorning with icing or glaze, be sure that the cookies are utterly cool earlier than adorning. You’ll be able to bake the cookies as much as 12 hours forward and go away them on cooling racks, loosely coated with a kitchen towel. Lastly, remember to add any sprinkles or different adornments earlier than the icing has set.
For those who’re considering of assembling a cookie tin, we suggest pairing these with one other traditional like chocolate chip cookies and a few bolder choices like chewy molasses cookies or ancho-mole cookies. Retailer embellished cookies in an hermetic container for as much as 3 days.
