Baking and decorating sugar cookies is one of our favorite Christmas traditions. It just doesn’t feel like the holidays until we have made cookies. Today we are sharing our favorite sugar cookie recipe and some fun designs we created.
We’ve experimented with multiple sugar cookie recipes to find the best one. We’ve added cream cheese to the dough which taste good, but made the dough pretty sticky and more difficult to work with when rolling and cutting shapes. When making large batches of cookies you want a dough that is easy to work with. After many recipe tests we found the perfect recipe that makes beautiful cookies and taste delicious. The winner, a fail proof classic sugar cookie recipe using both white and brown sugar. This recipe is also easy to flavor. We’ve added different extracts such as almond and maple, but our favorite variation so far is adding a little ground cinnamon.
Sugar cookies are often decorated with royal icing, but we much prefer our cookies with buttercream. Below we are sharing our vanilla buttercream recipe, but if you want to make your cookies more festive you can add a little flavoring such as peppermint extract. Once you’ve made your buttercream, divide into small bowls and add the food coloring. When coloring buttercream we recommend using gel food colorings. Now it’s time to decorate! Most of our cookies are decorated using a piping bag fitted with Wilton tip #5. If you don’t have piping tips just cut a small hole in the tip of your bag.
We would love to see the Christmas cookies you make! Leave us a comment below or tag us on Instagram and Facebook. Happy Baking!
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup salted butter at room tempurature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium bowl combine the flour and baking powder.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars at medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined.
- With the mixer at low speed gradually add the flour mixture. You may need to stop and scrape the sides of the bowl throughout. Beat until the mixture is all incorporated and pulls away from the side of the bowl to create a ball around the paddle.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerator for 10 minutes.
- Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough out until it's about 1/4-inch thick. Using your selected cookie cutter, cut out the shapes and transfer the cookies to a non-stick cookie sheet placing 1-inch apart. Roll up the remaining scraps and repeat.
- Bake the cookies for about 8 minutes. The cookies should be nice and fluffy and light in color. You do NOT want the cookies to start to brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Vanilla Buttercream
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter slightly cold
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Start off at a low speed and then gradually increase until the butter is light in color and smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl as needed.
- Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing at a low speed until fully incorporated before you add the next cup.
- Add the heavy cream (start with 2 tbsp), vanilla and salt and beat at a low speed for about 20 seconds. If you feel your buttercream is too stiff you can add the third tablespoon of cream. Increase the speed to high and beat for about 3-5 minutes until the mixture is perfectly smooth and fluffy. Stop the mixer once to scrape the bowl.
- Stir the buttercream by hand to remove any air bubbles.
Do we put 2 kg of sugar in this recipe? Or did I misunderstand. Thank you!
Hello! The cookie recipe takes 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar. The buttercream recipe takes 2 pounds powdered sugar. Hope this helps.