Sugar Cookie Recipes From Scratch
I have been baking or helping bake rolled cut out sugar cookies my whole life. My mother always thought of that as an important part of holidays, especially Christmas. She used a recipe that had been handed down to her from her mother. An interesting bit of information about recipes handed down from my maternal grandmother: they are named for the people who she got the recipe from. Like “Grandma’s pie”. So, the 2 sugar cookie recipes that I grew up helping bake and eating were “Vivien’s” and “Lucille’s”. They were ok, but nothing extraordinary. One of them has baking soda, which some people think are bitter. The other has baking powder. I have never been a huge fan of either, so have tried a multitude of sugar cookie recipes over the years with no huge success. Well, recently my daughter asked to take cut-out sugar cookies to school and I happened upon a recipe for sugar cookies that proclaimed they are the easiest. True enough. They are the easiest to make and easiest to work with. They are also really, really good! I have made dozens of cookies with this recipe and the dough is so great to work with. Usually with sugar cookie dough it doesn’t do well if you over work it. I re-rolled every scrap of dough with this cookie dough recipe and had no problems with them being tough or not wanting to stay together. After making these sugar cookies, my mother asked me for the recipe! This really may be the best sugar cookie in the world!
Best Sugar Cookies
1 ½ cups butter, softened (3 sticks)
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on a floured surface, about ¼ inch thick. Cut dough with cookie cutters. Save uncut dough and re-roll. Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake 6-8 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool about 1 minute on cookie sheet before removing with a spatula onto a wire rack. Cool completely.
I frost my cookies with a royal icing, so that it dries hard. I have discovered squeeze bottles work like a charm for piping lines onto cookies. They are much easier to use (not to mention clean) than pasty bags. If you don’t need to transport them, a butter cream frosting will work, also. I am a huge fan of sprinkles and decorations on my cookies as well. I prefer them to be very decorative with lots of silver balls, colored sugar and edible glitter.