
These are simply the Best Cut Out Sugar Cookies that I have ever tasted! It’s easy to make, that’s not overly sweet and has a hint of salt for the perfect flavor balance. It’s also a thick dough that really holds its shape. You can roll it out and use cookie cutters with to create any shape you want.
You can glaze them with a simple glaze recipe – only three ingredients. Or you can melt chocolate and dip and sprinkle!
Making & decorating Christmas cookies is a fun tradition for families. My girls love Cut Out Sugar Cookies the best so that they can cut into the various holiday shapes. But their favorite part is getting to decorate them with as much glaze and sprinkles as possible. Since it is really about the decorations, I like this very basic and easy recipe for the cookies.
I think that the first time we went all out with the different christmas cookie cutters and tons of sprinkles was in 2013 when Daniela was 5 and Alexa was nearly 2. We were visiting my parents in Missouri and my mom bought a tub of 18 different cookie cutters and red and green sprinkles. It was the start of our new tradition!
This year, we continued the cookie decorating tradition, though a bit early so I could post it here – I really had to twist their arms as you can imagine :).
I let them each make glaze, splitting the recipe in half and giving each girl a bowl to mix. However, then I pour all of the glaze in smaller bowls (I used paper for easy clean up) and let the girls pick their food coloring colors so that we have several different colors. So much fun!
Easy Prep for these Cut Out Sugar Cookies!
The biggest things to remember for this recipe are 1. you need to soften the butter ahead and 2. the dough needs to rest in the fridge for ideally 2 hours. Make sure that you plan for these steps as your little ones may become impatient or frustrated if they are not aware of the time needed.
Rolling the dough…
Try to roll the dough out evenly at a ¼ inch thick. You can see here that my girls were a bit overzealous with rolling and where it was too thin, the cookies got a bit brown and were crispier, but still delicious (those in the back in pic below). I bought a kid-size rolling pin, which is great for them! Check out my Shopping Page to see the rolling pin and 18-piece cookie cutters.
In terms of decorating with kids, my advice is: don’t worry about these being beautiful. The key is that everyone has fun and that the kids feel like they truly created their own little masterpiece.
And the flavor! I’m telling you, these truly are the Best Cut Out Sugar Cookies!
Have Fun!
xx, Carrie
Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 1 ⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ⁄2 teaspoon salt
For the Icing
- 2 cup confectioners sugar
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Food Coloring in desired colors
Instructions
Cookies
- In a large bowl combine butter with sugar, eggs, vanilla extract; beat on high using an electric mixer until fluffy.
- In a separate large bowl combine the flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the butter mixture until completely blended.
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
- On a floured surface roll out the dough to ¼-inch thick
- Cut into shapes with cookie cutters
- Place cookies about 2-inches apart on cookie sheet
- Bake 6 minutes
- Remove cookies to wire racks to cool before icing
Icing
- In a small bowl, combine the milk and the vanilla extract
- Mix in the confectioners sugar and continue mixing until smooth
- Pour equal amounts into small bowls or coffee mugs to create the different color glazes for decorating the cookies
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