This recipe for roll out sugar cookies can be made in a food processor or with a hand or stand mixer. The shortbread style dough bakes up tender and flaky in the oven while still maintaining its shape. These cookies are delicious on their own with a simple sprinkle of sugar or dipped in chocolate. They can also be decorated with royal icing, marzipan or frosted with buttercream.
The holidays call for cookie decorating and this recipe fits the bill. Not only are these roll out sugar cookies easy to make, but they bake up beautifully. The cookies are buttery, sweet, tender and a bit crisp. They maintain their shapes in the oven like a proper roll out sugar cookie should. I love eating them plain like a shortbread cookie, layered with sweet frosting and even dipped or drizzled in chocolate. The dough keeps well in the refrigerator or freezer and can be made ahead of time. The cookies themselves once baked stay delicious for days. Let the holiday baking begin!
WHY YOU WILL LOVE THESE ROLL OUT SUGAR COOKIES
This recipe is barely adapted from Smitten Kitchen. Here’s what I love about it:
- 1. The butter does not need to be soft. Most roll out-style sugar cookies require you to cream room temperature butter and sugar. I often find this method to produce a cookie dough that does not hold its shape when baked. Creaming can also result in a dough that tastes a little tough. By keeping the butter cold and “cutting” it into the flour like a pie dough, the sugar cookies stay flaky and crisp. You also don’t need to plan ahead of time – just grab the butter from the fridge and go!
- 2. Common ingredients. All you need to make these cookies are all purpose flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, salted butter, one egg and vanilla extract. If you don’t have salted butter, use unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp sea salt.
- 3. Chilling the dough is not required. After making the cookie dough, it can be rolled out right away. Because the butter is still cold instead of room temperature when you make the dough, there is no need to chill the dough first before rolling it out.
- 4. Cookie cutters are optional. This roll out sugar cookie dough will hold up to complex shapes, but you can also simply cut the dough into squares with a sharp knife, a pasta wheel cutter or a pizza cutter! Deb from Smitten Kitchen makes her cookies this way.
- 5. Make them in a food processor, a stand mixer or with a hand mixer. The dough for these cookies comes together easily with a variety of kitchen appliances. See the instructions below for more details.
- 6. Make them ahead. This recipe can easily be doubled or even tripled to make a mountain of holiday cookies. You can make the dough, wrap it and keep it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for longer. You can also roll out the cookies and cut them, then chill or freeze them before baking. After baking, cookies can be kept in a sealed container at room temperature for 5-7 days or frozen for longer.
WAYS TO DECORATE THESE ROLL OUT SUGAR COOKIES
- 1. Leave them plain! These cookies are delicious even without extra sugar on top.
- 2. Add sanding sugar: Before baking, sprinkle with any color sanding sugar you desire.
- 3. Chocolate dip or drizzle: After baking and cooling the cookies, melt some semi sweet, dark or white chocolate and dip the cookies in it or drizzle them!
- 4. Make icing: Sally’s Baking Addiction has wonderful recipes for an easy sugar cookie icing or a royal icing that hardens once dried like the snowmen cookies pictured below.
- 5. Make a buttercream frosting: Sally also has an excellent buttercream-style frosting recipe that is perfect for cookies.
- 6. Use marzipan: Store bought marzipan can be colored with food dye, rolled out and cut in the same shapes as your cookies! Use a little icing to act as glue and attach the marzipan to the top of each cookie like I did with the farm animal cookies pictured in this post.
Roll Out Sugar Cookies
A recipe for shortbread-style, roll out sugar cookies! Perfect for holiday cookie decorating or serving with just a sprinkle of sugar.
Equipment
- 1 kitchen scale
- 1 set of mixing bowls
- 1 food processor optional
- 1 stand mixer optional
- 1 hand mixer optional
- 1 set of measuring spoons optional
- 1 Rolling Pin
- various cookie cutters, a pizza wheel or pasta wheel cutter
- baking sheets
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 3 cups (375 grams) all purpose flour plus extra for rolling
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (226 grams) salted butter cold and cubed
- 1 extra large whole egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
To make the cookies in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer
- In a small bowl, weigh out the flour and baking powder. Whisk or stir well to disperse the baking powder thoroughly.
- In the bowl of the stand mixer or a large bowl if using a hand mixer, add the sugar and cold, cubed butter. Beat on medium speed with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer until the butter and sugar are soft and cohesive. No need to cream until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat for 30 seconds. Scrape down the bowl if necessary and beat again for a few seconds to make sure the egg is incorporated.
- Slowly add the flour and baking powder mixture on medium low speed until just combined.
To make the cookies in a food processor
- In a large bowl, weigh out the flour, baking powder and sugar with a kitchen scale. Whisk or stir well to combine. Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse a few times just. to ensure everything is well combined.
- Sprinkle the cold, cubed butter over the dry mix. Secure the lid and process until the butter and dry ingredients clump together and resemble damp sand. At this point, add the egg and vanilla. Process until the dough comes together. Scrape down the insides of the bowl a time or two if necessary.
To roll out and bake the cookies
- Line the baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Dump the cookie dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Alternatively, you can place half of the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll it out to about a 1/4" thickness with a rolling pin. Lightly flour the edges of your cookie cutters of choice and. begin to cut out shapes. Lay the shapes on the parchment lined baking sheets.
- Re-roll the scraps and continue cutting out shapes. If the dough becomes too warm or sticky, wrap it and chill in the refrigerator before continuing. Once the cookies are on the baking sheets, place them in the refrigerator or the freezer to chill for 15-20 minutes before baking while the oven preheats.
- Preheat a conventional oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly browned. Let them cool completely before decorating.
