If any cookie could represent the Christmas season, it would be a sugar cookie. I have been making these sugar cookies with my grandmother ever since I was old enough to eat one. These perfectly crunchy and soft cookies, coupled with a simple glaze, are irresistible and perfectly festive. Every generation of my family has been taught to cut out a sugar cookie, and our picture books are filled with frosting-covered faces and sugar-dusted kitchens. Though these sugar cookies began as a Christmas tradition in my family, they have evolved into a cookie we bake for any occasion, any holiday or really any day. A few years ago my grandmother passed the recipe down to me, and I have made these cookies many times since then. These cookies are simple and timeless, and there are absolutely no rules whatsoever when it comes to decorating.
Ingredients for cookies:
- 1 cup softened unsalted butter
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ½ tsp. almond extract
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. cream of tartar
Ingredients for glaze:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions:
- In a medium bowl, mix butter, powdered sugar, egg, vanilla and almond extract until combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.
- Fold half of the dry mixture into the wet mixture. When there are a few streaks of flour left, add the other half of the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap, and chill for at least three hours.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Cover a cutting board and rolling pin with flour, and place about one cup of dough on the board. Sprinkle flour on top of the dough, and roll it out until it is ¼ inch thick.
- Use a cookie cutter or a cup to cut the dough. Use a spatula to transfer the cookies from the cutting board to a metal sheet pan.
- Bake the cookies for seven to eight minutes.
- When the cookies are done baking, use the spatula to transfer them to cooling racks.
- While the cookies are cooling, make the glaze by combining three cups powdered sugar with ¼ cup milk. Whisk until smooth.
- Decorate however you want!
Tips and tricks:
- To make chocolate sugar cookies, add ¼ cup melted dark chocolate before adding the flour, and replace the ¼ cup flour with cocoa powder. Any cocoa powder will work, but Dutch process cocoa powder works best. If you want to deepen the chocolate flavor, add 1 tbsp. espresso powder.
- To decorate the cookies quickly, separate the glaze into two bowls and use liquid food coloring to dye them. Take a bowl of glaze and drip another color of glaze into the bowl. Flip a cookie upside down, dip it into the glaze and repeat!
- The glaze in this recipe will not harden like the icing on a traditional sugar cookie. For a crunchy cookie topper, use royal icing, which contains meringue powder to allow the icing to harden.