One of our beloved December family traditions is making sugar cookies in colorful shapes. This is our very favorite sugar cookie recipe!

Abbie says: “Sugar cookies are really fun and extremely yummy… and I’m about to eat one right now! Yum yum yum!”

Mrs. Brown says: “Don’t bother with a sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t have butter. Abbie’s father was not a sugar cookie fan until he tried these! I think it’s the butter that makes the difference.”

Ingredients

1 cup soft butter
1 2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
colored sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar/eggs/vanilla.

Gather half the dough into a ball. Flatten the ball and place it on a floured cutting board or counter. Cover the remainder of the dough with plastic so it does not dry out. Roll your dough until it is 1/4 inch thick. For some tips on rolling dough see our pie crust instructions. This dough is a bit more wet than pie crust, so when you see the dough start flaking up a bit, put some more flour on your rolling pin.

Cut out shapes with the cookie cutters. Be sure to press the cookie cutter all the way down to the board to make a clean cut.

Place your cookie shapes about 2 inches apart on an unbuttered cookie sheet. Sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar (or white if that’s what you have). Bake the cookies in a preheated oven for 6-10 minutes, depending on the cookie’s shape. If your shapes are very narrow, be sure to check them at 6 minutes. Cool cookies on rack (don’t let them stay on the sheet more than a few minutes or the colored sugar may make them stick!)

You’ll have leftover cookie dough on your board. Just gather it all up into a ball, roll again and cut out more shapes!

A note on the sugar: Any sugar that gets on the cookie sheet will melt and become sticky. If it goes into the oven again with the next batch it may burn. We have experimented with putting sugar on the cookies before we put them on the cookie sheet, but in the end we have found it faster and easier just to do it on the cookie sheet then use a spatula to scrape off the left-behind melted sugar before we do the next batch. We sometimes even wash the sheet between batches (and that is still faster).

Sugar Cookie Recipe

 

Print

Author: Blossoms and Posies

Recipe type: Dessert

You'll need...

• 1 cup soft butter
• 1⅔ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoon vanilla
• 3½ cups flour
• 2½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• colored sugar

Here's what to do...

1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. Beat butter and sugar together in large bowl until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt.
5. Add flour mixture to butter/sugar/eggs/vanilla.
6. Gather half the dough into a ball. Flatten the ball and place on floured cutting board or counter. Cover remainder of dough with plastic so it does not dry out.
7. Roll dough until ¼ inch thick.
8. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Be sure to press the cookie cutter all the way down to the board to make a clean cut.
9. Place cookie shapes about 2 inches apart on unbuttered cookie sheet.
10. Sprinkle cookies with colored sugar.
11. Bake in preheated oven for 6-10 minutes, depending on shape. If your shapes are very narrow, be sure to check them at 6 minutes.
12. Cool cookies on rack (don't let them stay on the sheet more than a few minutes or the colored sugar may make them stick!)

3.1.09

Ready for the GIVEAWAY?

Our super sweet giveaway today is a cookie cookbook and a set of four “Blossom” cookie cutters (we obviously had to give these away!) The giveaway is now closed!

We, the Brown family, are sponsoring this giveaway (yum yum.) There are multiple ways to gain points. If you are already following in any category, you can still add those points; just leave your info if asked for it. Rafflecopter will choose a winner at midnight on Friday, December 14, 2012.

For legal reasons the giveaway is only open to people over 18.  Girls – ask your moms, dads, grandparents, etc to enter, and create together!

a Rafflecopter giveaway