What would you choose for dessert; a sugar cookie or a slice of chocolate cake? If you’re anything like me and those two items were in your home, the sugar cookies would be hanging around long after the chocolate cake was polished off.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like sugar cookies, but love them… Not so much. But trying to decorate chocolate cake to give as gifts – that wouldn’t work as well as sugar cookies do. Which leads me to the reason why I’m writing this post today – I’ve come up with a sugar cookie recipe by playing around with some favorite recipes. It’s definitely tasty, although it’s still not in the ‘chocolate cake’ category. If you try it out I’d love to hear what you think in the comment section below.
Before I get to the recipe, let me share a little introduction to the ‘Polar Bear Parade’ cookies with you.
When I saw this ribbon months ago at Michael’s Craft Store I just knew I had to make a cookie version of it. Pretty colors, a simple shape and such a cute little polar bear.
These were finished before Christmas, but I wasn’t able to post them in time. If you’d like to create these, you could make just the polar bear or substitute another object for the gift instead. It’d be a nice winter-themed cookie I think. The ribbon is probably on sale now too!
I used the KopyKake drawing projector to help me draw the image (believe me – I need it!), but you might be able to freehand as it’s a fairly simple shape.
Some of these are made of a new gingerbread recipe I found on-line, but I wasn’t entirely happy with the results (taste).
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been playing around with some of my ‘go-to’ sugar cookie recipes – a few of the main ones being Peggy Porschen’s
and the NFSC (No Fail Sugar Cookie) recipe (from cakecentral.com), to come up with my own combination. The latter two are still favourites for me, but now I’ve got a third choice. This is what I’ve come up with (please also see notes at the bottom of the recipe):
Sugar Cookie Recipe
Sugar Cut Out Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tsp vanilla extract *or seeds from 1 vanilla bean
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder *take this out if you don't want your cookies to spread
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated - for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you'd like a light and fluffy cookie, that's ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you'd like the cookie to hold its shape.
- Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.
- Add liquid vanilla extract. Stir briefly. Alternatively, cut open your vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out. Add to mixing bowl and stir.
- Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour, baking powder and salt).
- Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won't escape. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds. Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it's ready. It's also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).
- Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
- Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
- Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
- Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.
- Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
Notes
A few notes about the recipe (also listed in recipe):
These have already been included in the recipe above, but just in case you didn’t see them, they are important to read, so I’ve included them again.
*Butter – The butter needs to be soft, or room temperature. I leave mine out the night before I do my baking. If you forget, you can grate the butter on the largest hole of your box grater, so that the sugar and butter will mix together better.
*Amount of Butter – I’ve noticed some people who’ve tried the recipe who live in a warmer climate have trouble with 2.5 cups butter, and although the extra 1/2 cup butter taste is nice, to make the dough easier to work with in any climate, I edited the recipe to say only 2 cups of butter. The printable version is uneditable, so still says 2.5 cups of butter.
*Baking powder – I hardly use any baking powder in my recipe because the dough will spread and rise more during baking, thereby making the shape of the cookie less crisp. The only time I use it now, is if I’m just making round shortbread cookies and I don’t care about the cookies spreading.
*Chill your dough if it gets too soft work with. It’s a softer, sometimes sticky dough (depending on your environment as well), but in my humble opinion, makes up for it in taste.
*Read these tips here on stopping dough from spreading.
*Added May 19th, 2019 – Clarification – the sugar used for the cookies is granulated sugar not icing sugar or confectioner’s sugar.
I’ll do an in-depth tutorial with pictures on making the sugar cookie dough in a future post.
Hope you enjoy this recipe!
xo,
Marian
I have also used this recipe for about 5 years now and everyone tends to love it. It’s the only recipe I’ve found that tastes good and holds its shape!
Aww, thanks for sharing Rikki, I’m so happy to hear that!
I was wanting to incorporate the taste of bourbon for a 60th birthday. I always use the sugar recipe only but wondering what you think of using brown butter (letting it solidify) and adding bourbon?
Hi Scherrei,
I think you god use brown butter in the solid state, yes. The bourbon will add more liquid of course, so you may need to compensate by adding more flour. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks!! Working with the cookie dough so many times before it helped knowing the consistency of what it should look like. I will let you know how they turn out!!
Perfect, have fun!
What kind butter do you use? Also what is your royal icing? Love how it’s glossy!
Debbie
Hi Debbie,
I use various brands of butters lately; what is on sale is best. 😉 Here is my royal icing recipe https://sweetopia.net/2012/01/royal-icing-recipe-free-illustrated-recipe/
This is my go to Christmas cookies recipe!
Thank you for sharing, it’s a huge hit with the fam.
Have you tried making a gluten free version of these? I have a friend with a daughter that is GF and wanted to make her some cookies. Curious if you have and if you had to modify the recipe at all.
Hi Inger,
I’m still playing around with a GF version of this one, but I do have a flourless cookie here;
https://sweetopia.net/2020/05/flourless-almond-sugar-cut-out-cookie-recipe/
I use gluten free flour 1 to 1 for this or add a bit of xanthan gum gum and it turns out amazing! Love this recipe
Wonderful, thank you!
I have used this recipe for years and it is the best! I need to make 20 dozen cookies for a fundraiser. Can I bake and freeze? If so, can I decorate after they have defrosted? Any insight would be appreciated.
Your website is my go to for all my baking needs! Thanks for all your great recipes and tips!
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
I’m glad you like them! Absolutely, you can bake and freeze them. Here is a post on that (defrosting etc). Thanks for your kind comment, I appreciate it!
Hi – I love this recipe, works every time! Can you cut out shapes and freeze them to use at a later date? And if so, would you need to defrost first or could they just go straight in the over for a few minutes more?
Thank you!
Hi Kirsten,
Yes, you can cut out the shapes and freeze them to use at a later date. I would bake them from frozen, straight into the oven.
Happy baking!
How far in advance can you start making the cookies? Do they need to be refrigerated if several days? I didn’t want to start too far in advance but didn’t want to rush through decorating them either.
Hi Tiffany,
Here is a post for you I wrote on the shelf life of cookies; https://sweetopia.net/2012/02/how-long-do-decorated-cookies-stay-fresh-what-is-the-shelf-life-of-decorated-cookies/
They do not need to be refridgerated, here is another post for you; https://sweetopia.net/2012/01/video-how-to-dry-cookies-decorated-with-royal-icing/
You can freeze them when you’re done, if they’ve been made in advance. Hope that helps!
You had a sugar cookie recipe on here that had 2 oz of cream cheese in it. I loved it but now I can’t find it. Help!! 🙂
I love these cookies. Can you give me an advice on how thick should I make the cookies? thanks
Marian, my favorite sugar cookie recipe! Just shared with some new fans who had my cookies today. I had a small holiday gathering and they were a big hit! I always add an extra 1/2 cup flour and the turn out perfect every time. Thanks for sharing your great recipes!
Joni
I’ve been using this recipe for the past 5 years, and have also had to increase the flour. I weigh my ingredients, and use 690g of Gold Medal All Purpose Flour, which to me is 5 1/2 cups.
Hi! Absolutely love your recipe and have been using it for years! I stuck some in the freezer the last time I made it and am wondering how long it’s good in the freezer for? Also, I didn’t cut out the shapes before I froze the dough…could I still use it do you think?
Thanks!!
Marian, of all your recipes this is my favorite. These cookies always come out great and they taste fabulous without even any cookie decorating. This year I followed the recipe without making changes and they were just perfect. Yum!
Well thank you so much Joni! Simple and classic is always a win, isn’t it! Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!
Hello
Do you use cold eggs or are they room temperature as well ?
Any recommendations for egg substitutes for the recipe?
The first time I made this cookies was over 10 years ago for my daughters Pre-K class for Easter. It was also my first time attempting to do sugar cookies or cookies in general. My daughter loved the cookies and soo did I (I’m not a big cookie fan). It became a tradition for me to make her this cookies at least once a year for her birthday or a holiday. Then my nieces caught on that I only made them for my daughter’s birthday and they started requesting them for their birthday as well.
What caught my attention to your recipe out of the millions of cookie recipes in Pinterest was the picture lol but then I read the first two paragraphs and that’s when I knew I had to give them a try, we fell in love and never went back to looking for a sugar cookie recipe again. (Maybe only when I look for this one, I always tend to loose it when I finish baking them lol. But Pinterest has my back always lol) Just look for the polar bear with sweetopia I tell myself.
Thank you for creating this recipe my family loves it and soo do I.