The only sugar cookie recipe you will ever need again….
Who doesn’t love a delicious, buttery sugar cookie cut into a perfectly shaped heart and frosted with gleaming sugar frosting, topped with the sugary crunch of sprinkles (long sentence, I know)? No one. I have yet to meet ONE person that says, “no thank you. I don’t like sugar cookies.” If they do say that, then you don’t need that type of negativity in your life anyway.
Cut-out cookies are my “it” treat for the holidays, school events and bake sales. With a bazillion shapes of cookie cutters and fun edible adornments, you can’t go wrong with these for just about every event…I mean every event (yes, I even made these for a bachelorette party, but I won’t go in to detail about it). Be sure to use the good gel food coloring! You don’t need nearly as much of it, and the colors are much more vibrant!
I have tried so many recipes before landing on this one! This, is by far, the best tasting, easy to work with recipe I have found. The almond extract really punches the flavor up a notch, but you can certainly omit and use all vanilla extract. You could even get crazy and use lemon extract and add some zest and do a delicious glaze on these. Once you make them, you will throw all of your other recipes away and this will be THE ONE. I promise. Their versatility is mind blowing…MIND BLOWING!
Sugar Cookies
Cookies
- 1 cup salted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
Frosting
- 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
- 2-4 TBSP milk
- 1 TBSP light corn syrup
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- food coloring, optional
- crystal sugar sprinkles or other decorations, optional
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In your mixer, combine softened butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and almond extract. Beat until fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Scrape the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1.5 hours or longer. You can even make this dough ahead of time. Just be sure to have it at room temperature for a bit before working the dough or you will have a rock!
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Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle a wooden board with powdered sugar and roll out the dough to 1/4″ and cut to your desired shapes. Using parchment paper on your cookie sheet, place cookies about 2″ apart (they will puff up a little bit). Bake for 4-5 minutes. They will seem undercooked, but I finish them off on the cookie sheet while cooling. Cool off completely on wire rack before frosting.
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For the frosting, simply combine the sifted powdered sugar with the milk, corn syrup, almond extract and optional food coloring. I don’t even bother with my mixer and just to this part by hand. I make the frosting a little thinner and puddle it on top of each cookie. You can really get creative and dip the cookies, drizzle the frosting or frost the whole dang thing. Another thing that is worth noting, buy the good food coloring from a cake decorating store or on Amazon. It’s not that expensive and the colors are so much more vibrant and you don’t need nearly as much of it!
Adapted Recipe: http://www.geniuskitchen.com by Kittencalrecipezazz