Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

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We are so basic when it comes to Christmas cookies that it hurts. Seriously though, I love having my kitchen in full swing all Christmas long. We give cookies to teachers, neighbors, fire fighters...you name it. But I had to learn my limits in order to not go insane when baking with kids.

First: I pre-make the dough. No children are ever involved in mixing, egg-cracking or flour pouring. They can learn to crack an egg when they're grown, thank you very much. Maybe you've got a different limit but this one is mine and it's made a huge difference to me and no difference to them.

Secondly: for the most part, we don't put icing on them. (Gasp!) Hear me out...this makes them easier to store and everyone still loves them with significantly less sugar overloads and crashes. 

Every now and then we'll mix up some icing for a few of them, so I put that recipe below too, but the majority of our cookies are eaten plain and guess what, EVERYONE STILL LOVES THEM AND THEY ARE STILL DELICIOUS AND SPECIAL. 

I've slightly modified the original recipe from here. She calls them the best and I totally agree. The dough doesn't need to be chilled before rolling out and the shapes hold really well instead of puffing up and losing their defined edges. And most importantly, they are GOOD!

So 99% of the time, I use my oven at 375 degrees. This is the one recipe that I go down to 350. These are a perfect blend of soft and crispy. Bake 'em for 7-8 minutes and NO MORE.

Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

YIELD: 3 dozen cookies

PREP TIME: 20 minutes

COOK TIME: 8 minutes

TOTAL TIME: 28 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350° F. In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth, at least 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla and almond extracts and egg. Add the baking powder, salt and flour to the wet ingredients and beat until just combined. The original recipe called for 3 cups of flour, but I wanted to leave room to use a lot of flour when kneading, rolling and cutting. If your dough is too wet, it will get better as you add flour.

Move your dough to a floured surface and finish off kneading the dough by hand. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. Let the cookies continue to bake on the cookie sheet before moving to a wire rack.

Here are some additional NOTES from the original author:

• If you must chill the dough just leave it on the counter top for 10 minutes before rolling or work the dough with your hands for a few minutes.

• You can omit the almond extract if you do not have it available, however the taste is really fantastic with the hint of almond.

• Keep in mind that the recipe yield will vary according to how thick you roll your cookies and how large or small your cutters are. Bake for 6 minutes to test. They should be soft.

• Leave them on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to cool completely. If you reach 7-8 minutes and the edges turn brown your cookie will be crisper.

Original recipe and images © In Katrina's Kitchen 

For Icing:

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups confectioners sugar

¼ cup milk

½ tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

Almost every recipe I find instructs you to sift your powdered sugar, but I just don't see any benefit in doing that. So I don't. Maybe we have simpler taste buds around here. Just add these four ingredients into a bowl and mix them up! You can add more or less milk to get the consistency that you'd like.

We also use food coloring that is free of artificial dyes and colors, more on that another day. This is the stuff we like the most!

If you like the icing that turns hard, she has a recipe for that, but I haven't tried it. Here's the link to hers.

Happy Baking Friends! May you know your limits, enjoy the process and savor the results :)