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After much research and The Great Sugar Cookie Experiment I am happy to have a sugar cookie recipe that is perfect, in my humble opinion, for decorating with my favorite royal icing. This is a vanilla almond sugar cookie recipe and not only is it delicious, but the cookies are sturdy enough for both decorating and shipping. Break out your favorite cookie cutters and give my favorite sugar cookie recipe a try. I’d love to hear what you think!
Sugar Cookies for Decorating
sugarkissed.net
Ingredients
1-1/8 cup unsalted butter
1-1/4 cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
Directions
1. Cream together the butter and sugar. I set the butter out on the counter for about 30 minutes, chopped into small squares, to bring it to room temperature before beginning. (I have had bad luck with using the microwave to bring butter to room temperature.)
2. Beat in the eggs (I set these out on the counter with the butter to bring them to room temperature too), vanilla, and almond flavorings.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
4. One cup at a time, mix the dry ingredients into the wet. Scraping down your bowl as needed.
5. Divide dough up into three sections, Saran wrap, and refrigerate overnight. (For some reason cookies just taste better when the dough is refrigerated overnight.)
6. When you are ready to bake, take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes so it’s not too hard to work with.
7. After rolling and cutting your dough, set your dough shapes in the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking to reduce spreading.
8. Bake on parchment paper lined baking sheets at 350 for 6 to 8 minutes.
9. After removing the cookies from the oven, let them sit for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
Is this recipe good for intricate cookie cutters . Looking for a recipe which will hold its shape after baking.please reply to my email if possible.
Thanks
Pearse, I think the most intricate cookie cutters I have used with this recipe are mini letter cutters. I’ve also used it for custom cutting cookies using a template and combining cookie shapes. I think it would work just fine. The key is keeping the dough cold while you work with it to get sharp cuts.
Dear Janine,
I just came to know about your web today.. it’s amazing. I am just referring here to the sugar cookies recipe you are posting. I found that you have posted a slightly different recipe on http://djssugarshack.com/wordpress1/butterfly-cookie-tutorial-from-janine-of-sugarkissed-net/
Which one shall we give a try? can you please advise. thank you
Thanks so much for your kind words, Hala. As I tweak my sugar cookie recipe I update it on my blog. If you want to try the most recent recipe that I’m using, please use the one here on my blog. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!
Hi, I just stumbled onto your blog looking for how to make cookies for my upcoming baby sprinkle. I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew! Your sugar cookie recipe looks great and I am hoping I can pull off the onesie cookies in pretty girly patterns (I have NEVER made decorated cookies before), but I am super busy and wondering if you can make/decorate in advance and how long will they keep for? Thanks a million!
Sophia, my best advice for your first time is don’t do everything on one day. Typically, I prep my dough the 1st day & refrigerate, next day I bake the cookies & make the icing, next day I start decorating.
You definitely can freeze them. I have frozen these cookies at all stages: the uncooked dough, the undecorated cookies, and the decorated cookies. Make sure everything is packed air tight before freezing and don’t unpack anything before it has completely thawed.
Once the cookies are decorated, I think it is best that they are eaten within about 5 days. But, I’ve had people eat individually wrapped cookies as much as 2 weeks later and say they were still good.
The onesies are a great starter cookie. Please feel free to email/Facebook/twitter me if you have any questions while making them. Good luck! I’d love to hear how they turn out!
I was wondering, are these the crisp or soft kind of sugar cookies? I can never tell unless someone says it or I try make them myself (and then being upset usually)! Not living or being from the US I have never really grown to love the softer sugar cookies
This sugar cookie recipe is designed to be sturdy enough for decorating and packaging. It’s not crisp but not overly soft either. The texture of your stand roll-out cookies. Thanks for asking, Sam!
Can’t wait to try it, but have you considered measuring by weight instead of using measuring cups?
I have heard that weighing flour is a better way to make sure the measurement is the same every time. I try to remember to stir my flour and load it into my measuring cups the same way each time I back to keep things consistent.
Further to Angie’s question, above, regarding measuring – how do you arrive at 1-1/8 cup unsalted butter? Is is by weight or volume? ie do you try to fill a cup measure with soft butter (and scrape it out to mix) or do you weigh it? Thanks!
All the measurements are by volume. Thank you for asking for clarification.
I’ve been baking but I’ve been weighing everything. I’ve you thought about putting both cups and grams for the ones that like to bake by weight. I’ve been looking for a really good sugar cookie recipe that holds its shape, but also soft.
I’m going to try to make these and see how I like them, thanks for posting the recipe for them. And thanks for the royal icing recipe that’s not hard, I’m going to try that at the same time. Wish me luck!
I’ve never measured my ingredients by weight but I have heard others mention it, Loretta. When I measure my flour, I use a spoon to scoop it from the container into the measuring cup. Have fun decorating your cookies! I look forward to hearing how you liked the recipes.
Quick question?? Can you post a picture of the dough after you’re done mixing all ingredients? Am wondering if the consistency I got is the right one…
Lucy you can see pictures of my sugar cookie dough in the following posts: Pinwheel Swirl Cookies and Custom Cookie Shapes. Hope this helps!
Thanks, I know now what I did wrong : ^/. Instead of an and additional yolk, I did 2egg whites. Oops
Been there, done that, Lucy. It’s hard not to just strain out the yolk out of habit.
These were so good when coupled with the icing recipe! Thanks for perfecting the recipe. Perfect cookie to go with the goodies at my daughter’s 2nd birthday party. They also freeze very well.
So glad to hear that you enjoyed my sugar cookie recipe, Niki! Thanks for commenting!
About how many cookies does this recipe make. I am using pretty big cookie cutters. About 4″ long ( lighthouse, lobster) and I need to make 50. Any idea?? Thanks so much. I’m going to give this a try!!
I had the exact number written down and now I can’t find my notes, Carrie. I think you will need two batches. It will of course depend on how thick you roll them and the shapes, so maybe plan for 3 to be safe. I’d love to see pics of your finished cookies!
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