Sugar Cookie recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1 1⁄2 cups butter, softened
- 3 cups white sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Directions:
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth.
- Beat in eggs - one at a time - and vanilla.
- Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Divide dough in half -- create two balls and then roll out each on a sheet of parchment paper to make two flat disks 1⁄4-1⁄2 inch in thickness. (Tip, place a sheet of parchment also over the top of your ball and flatten a bit with your hands, then roll out to disk with a rolling pin on top of the parchment -- this stops the dough from sticking while being rolled and keeps your rolling pin clean)
- Cover the disks of dough with another layer of parchment and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
When ready to bake:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
- Take one disk of dough out of the oven and immediately start using your favourite cookie cutters to cut cookie shapes while the dough is still cold -- place shaped cookie dough on a cookie sheet lined with fresh parchment, leaving at least 1 inch between cookies.
- With remaining dough, combine into another ball, and place parchment over top and roll into another flattened disk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 inch thick. If the dough is getting warm, place the disk of dough back in the fridge for a few minutes to chill. You can now work on the other disk of dough that was previously chilling.
- Repeat cutting shapes with your favourite cookie cutters and placing cut cookies 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. - I place the cookie sheets of cut-out cookies back in the fridge to cool further until ready to bake
- If you do not want to ice the cookies but are wanting to use sprinkles, sprinkle unbaked cookies as desired, and lightly pat sprinkles onto the top of the dough.
- Bake in preheated oven for 6 to 8 minutes.
- Cool completely before icing - I typically bake cookies one day and ice the next, but you could ice them the same day, just be sure cookies have properly cooled in advance.
Sugar Cookie Icing recipe:
Ingredients:
- 6 cups Icing Sugar - best to open a new bag as icing sugar will stale once opened and not used)
- 1⁄2 cup Milk, more or less depending on the stiffness of icing desired
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract, pure vanilla (this will not alter the colour if you desire white icing)
Directions:
- Sift icing
- Blend ingredients together until smooth - add more milk or icing sugar if needed to reach desired consistency of icing/glaze.
- Decorate cookies
- Leave freshly iced cookies for 6-24 hours for the icing to properly set - the icing will then be firm enough to stack cookies.
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