These are the best sugar cookies! This recipe makes a simple, versatile vanilla sugar cookie; the dough is easy to roll and to work with and doesn’t spread when baking, so your cookies will always have sharp, defined edges! You can decorate these cookies with sanding sugar, or you can use my recipe below for a simple (and tasty!) pipe-able sugar cookie frosting (one that’s not royal icing!).
The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
This is just a friendly reminder that Christmas is officially less than one month away, so if you aren’t freaking out yet about not having all of your Christmas shopping done, or even started, now is the time to start freaking out.
Wait. Breathe. Have a (sugar) cookie.
While my gift buying situation is not at all under control, I at least have the Christmas cookie situation locked down with this easy sugar cookie recipe. I started working on this recipe a long, long time ago, but made myself wait until after Thanksgiving to finally share it. It was a lot of work, but the end result was perfect cut-out sugar cookies that were well worth the wait.
This recipe yields perfect homemade sugar cookies that:
- Don’t spread in the oven, so you have perfectly defined shapes.
- Have a soft texture and buttery flavor (and instructions for adding other flavors, if desired).
- Can be made thicker and softer or thinner and crisper, depending on your preference.
- Have a simple, shiny, foolproof sugar cookie icing that you are going to love (and it’s not Royal Icing!).
This is an easy cut-out sugar cookie recipe and is destined to be your future cookie platter staple. Sugar cookie dough always shocks me with its simplicity; it only calls for a few ingredients and no fancy techniques.
When you first make your dough, it will be a bit sticky and tough to manage so you are going to need to chill it before you can roll it out. I divide my dough into about two equal parts, wrap each in cling wrap and form it into a disk, then chill for 2-3 hours (though you can certainly chill it overnight, or even make it several days in advance).
I know, chilling is a pain. I played with some no-chilling-required recipes, though, and this recipe that required chilling beat out all of my no-chill sugar cookie recipe versions, so trust me when I tell you that the wait is worth it! It also makes your dough very easy to manage when it comes time to roll it out, simple and frustration-free.
An Easy Sugar Cookie Icing
For the frosting for these cookies, I did not use a royal icing, which I know is popular. Truthfully, I don’t really love the taste of royal frosting, and I know many of you don’t keep meringue powder in your cabinets or feel comfortable making egg white frosting.
Instead, I used the same frosting that I used for my Galaxy Cookies. It’s easy to make, easy to pipe, and dries hard for stackable cookies. This recipe uses light corn syrup (which is not the same as high fructose corn syrup!) for a nice shiny frosting.
I frosted my cookies and then topped a few of them off with colored sugars, but if you want to skip the frosting you can sprinkle your cut-outs with sanding sugar just before baking. This is the way my mom always makes her sugar cookies, they still taste delicious!
Tips for making perfect sugar cookies:
- When cutting out your sugar cookies, make sure to keep your cuts as close together to get as many cookies out of your dough as possible. You will want to re-roll any scraps so that you use all of your dough. Keep in mind that with each re-roll you’re adding more flour into the dough, so you want to get as much as possible out of that first roll.
- Bake cookies that are about the same size together. Otherwise the small ones will burn and the large ones won’t finish baking.
- For thinner, crispier sugar cookies: Roll cookie dough thinner (about 1/8″) and look for the edges of the cookies to be just beginning to turn golden brown to know that they are done.
- For thicker, softer sugar cookies: Roll dough to about 1/4″, and watch for cookies to be just beginning to turn lightly golden around the edges. Let them cool completely on the cookie rack as they may break if you try to move them while they’re still warm.
- When making the sugar cookie icing: It’s hard to mess this one up, because if you make it too thin, just add more powdered sugar. If it’s too thick, just add more milk!
Alright, that’s how to make the best Sugar Cookies from scratch. Hopefully you guys love cookies as much as I do because I have so many more coming up this month that will be great for your holiday cookie platters (especially excited to share my gingerbread cookie recipe!).
Enjoy!!
More Classic Christmas Cookies to Try:
I included a brief video on how to make this Sugar Cookie Recipe in today’s post. If you are looking for my detailed video, you can see my Sugar Cookie Video on YouTube.
Easy Sugar Cookies & Sugar Cookie Frosting
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature (226g)
- 1 cup sugar (200g)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract²
- 1 large egg
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (315g)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
Sugar Cookie Frosting
- 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted (375g)
- 3-4 Tablespoons milk
- 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Gel food coloring optional
- Additional candies and sprinkles for decorating optional
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl and use an electric hand mixer) and beat until creamy and well-combined.
- Add egg and vanilla extract and beat until completely combined.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Gradually add dry ingredients into wet until completely combined.
- Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap and transfer approximately half of the dough onto the wrap (dough will be quite sticky at this point, that's OK!).
- Cover with clear wrap and mold into a disk. Repeat with remaining cookie dough in another piece of cling wrap. Transfer dough to refrigerator and chill for at least 2-3 hours3
- Once dough has finished chilling, preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Generously dust a clean surface with flour and deposit one chilled cookie dough disk onto the surface. Lightly flour the dough and roll out to 1/8" (for thinner, crispier cookies) or 1/4" (for thicker, softer cookies). Continue to add flour as needed both on top of and beneath the dough so that it doesn't stick.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and use a spatula to transfer shapes to prepared baking sheet.4
- Bake on 350F (175C) for 9-10 minutes5, or until edges just begin to turn lightly golden brown.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet before moving and frosting.
Sugar Cookie Frosting
- Combine sugar, 2 Tablespoons of milk, corn syrup, and vanilla extract in a medium-sized bowl and stir until combined. If frosting is too thick, add more milk, about a teaspoon at a time, until the frosting is thick but pipeable. If you accidentally add too much milk, add powdered sugar until desired texture is reached.
- If coloring the frosting, divide into bowls and color as desired at this point.
- Transfer frosting to a piping bag with a piping tip (I used Wilton 5), or place in a Ziploc bag and snip a small piece of the corner off (not as neat, but this will still work, just take care that the frosting isn’t so thick that it breaks open the seam of the bag when you are squeezing).
- Pipe frosting on cookies and decorate with decorative candies, if desired.
- Allow frosting to harden before enjoying (this took several hours for me and may vary for you depending on the consistency of your frosting)
- Keep uneaten cookies sealed in an airtight container at room temperature.
Video
Notes
Full-Length Video:
I shared a quick, short video for how to make this sugar cookie recipe in today's post. If you prefer my longer, more detailed videos, please check out the detailed video I made for my YouTube channel.Nutrition
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Laura says
This is my 2nd attempt and I’m still learning so much! This recipe is fabulous. I am not a fan of the royal icing taste but yours is YUMMY!! Thanks so much for sharing it with us!!
Sam says
You’re very welcome, thank you for letting me know how it turned out for you, Laura! 🙂
Laura says
How long in advance can you make/store icing? I have a busy week but need to make at least one batch of cookies. Hope to make them in three different sessions.
We love this recipe!
Sugar Spun Run says
Hi, Laura! You can make the cookies in advance, however, the icing is best when used right away since it hardens rather quickly. 🙂
April Bricker says
ThiS is the BEST sugar cookie recipe I’ve ever used. Thank you!
Sugar Spun Run says
Thank you so much, April! I am so glad that you enjoyed the sugars and found them to be the best! I appreciate your feedback and your 5-star review. 🙂
Edwina Marcotte says
Sam, I’ve been baking your sugar cookies and I get nothing but compliments. I do have a question regarding the icing. At times the icing will dry fine and then others I’m getting like a marble effect and the color is dull. I’d love to send you a picture so you can see what I’m talking about. I would really like to have the icing dry with more a shine, than the dull. Any ideas?
Sam says
Hi Edwina! Feel free to send a photo to my email at Samantha@sugarspunrun.com (or you may post the photo in my free Facebook group where I’ll see it and others might have an idea what might help with this, too, it’s a great resource for baking-related questions!). I’ll be happy to take a look and see if I can help troubleshoot 🙂
Christine says
My cookies spread in the oven, what did I do wrong
Rosy says
This recipe looks great and I can’t wait to try it, I don’t need tonnes of biscuits though, do you reckon I could freeze half the dough to use at a later date?
Sugar Spun Run says
Hi, Rosy! You can freeze half of the sugar cookie dough if needed. I recommend that you store it in an airtight container. Enjoy the sugar cookies. 🙂
Rosy says
Fabulous, thank you!
Sugar Spun Run says
Thank you, Rosy! 🙂
Kirra says
The frosted cookies have been in the fridge overnight (approx. 16 hours) and is still wet to touch. What do you think could have happened? Is there a way to dry the icing?
Thanks
Sam says
Hi Kirra! I never put mine in the fridge to dry, but that definitely seems unusual. Do you think too much milk might have accidentally been used? I include some tips for getting the right consistency of the frosting in this video if that is helpful. The frosting definitely should be dry by now!
Teresa S Peacock says
I made this recipe last week with a church-school vacation camp I co-lead. The attendees were 15 kids between ages 5 and 16 years old. We decided to scale up the recipe 7 times (yielding circa 280 cookies) so we would have generous portions for the 100-150 homeless persons our church’s soup kitchen/food pantry serves weekly.
The cookies and the frosting were the best I’ve ever tasted! They came out so beautifully! And the kids had a wonderful time creating gorgeous, delicious cookies! Raves all around! Thank you for this wonderful recipe.
Sugar Spun Run says
I am so glad that the sugar cookies were such a hit, Teresa, and that everyone had fun in the process of decorating them. Thank you so much for using my recipe and taking the time to comment, I greatly appreciate it! 🙂
Evie says
I can’t wait to try this recipe. With my BFF 👯♀️ tomorrow I will definitely write a review I hope it works out that’s all for now. Except I bet they will turn out really good. Bye 👋🏾
Sugar Spun Run says
Hi, Evie! I can’t wait to hear how your sugar cookies turn out! I hope that you and your best friend have a fun time baking and decorating the cookies. 🙂
Karen says
How many cookies does the recipe yield using a 3” round cookie cutter ? Thank you.
Sugar Spun Run says
Hi, Karen! I use typically use a 3″ cookie cutter and can get approximately 40 cookies out of one batch. I hope that helps! 🙂
Jennifer says
I’ve tried several of your icing recipes and they’re delicious. The cream cheese is so yummy and the vanilla frosting is very good too. I’m going to try this sugar cookie icing. I’m sure it will be as good as the others. I have a tip for you for when rolling out your cookie dough. Use powdered sugar instead of flour to make the ball unsticky and to “flour” your table with to roll them on. This way, you’re not adding any additional flour to the dough to toughen it. The powdered sugar doesn’t affect the flavor of your cookies either. You only need a little and it works perfectly the same as flour does. It’s a trick my Grammy taught me. Try it out and see what you think. Thanks for posting all your yummy recipes. ❤️
Sugar Spun Run says
Thank you so much for sharing the tip, Jennifer, I will have to try it next time for sure! I am also happy to hear how much you have enjoyed my frosting recipes. I am excited to hear what you think about the sugar cookie icing. Keep me posted on how it turns out. 🙂
Jamie says
These were the most popular cookies at my family’s Christmas party. They are perfect!!
Sam says
That is awesome! Thanks for letting me know how the sugar cookies turned out, Jamie! I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year!
NRS says
Can I make the frosting without the corn syrup?
Thanks!
Sarah says
Love the recipe. Everyone else did too. But I did find a problem when I tired to double the batch and used salted butter (omitted the salt). I also used your chocolate version as well once again a huge hit. Will be using again and again.
Sugar Spun Run says
I am so glad that you enjoyed the sugar cookie recipe and the chocolate sugar cookie recipe, Sarah! Thank you so much for choosing these as your go-to cookies for the holidays, I appreciate it! 🙂