Homemade Sugar Cookies

This holiday weekend, I had to share our FAVORITE sugar cookie recipe with you! The dough is made with powdered sugar, which makes it super soft and a complete cookie-dough-eating-worthy-snack. In honor of 4th of July, we decided to make star shaped cookies, but you could use any design for any occasion. The recipe is so easy and our girls LOVE to help! 

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter softened 

• 1 ½ cup powdered sugar

• 1 egg medium sized

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• ½ teaspoon almond extract

• 1 teaspoon baking soda 

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Instructions 

1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together with an electric mixer. Once mixed, add the egg, vanilla, almond extract, and baking soda and continue to stir on medium speed. Once incorporated, turn the mixer down to low speed and add the flour in one cup portions. When the flour disappears, turn off the mixer and transfer the dough onto a floured surface. Knead the dough until it forms a solid ball. If dough is sticky, add additional flour while kneading (do not be afraid to add 1/4-1/2 cup more flour while kneading if sticky).
2. Next, on a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to 3/8 to 1/2 inch thickness. The thinner you go, the faster they will bake & the crispier they will be. Our family likes them to be thick and soft, so I keep them around 3/8 inch thick and use our favorite cookie cutters.  
3. As you are cutting them out, transfer them to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between them (to allow them to spread). Cover and refrigerate cut out cookie dough for 1-2 hours. (For more intricate cut out shapes, I highly recommend this refrigeration step. For regular circle cookies, refrigerating is not as important, but will result in a cookie that does not spread as much. For intricate shapes, I cut out the cookie shapes first and then refrigerate the entire trays. This helps so you do not have to work with a cold chunk of dough.)
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned. Do not worry if they look underbaked, as they will continue to bake on the hot cookie sheet after it comes out of the oven.
5. Cool and frosting of your choice. Our family favorite buttercream frosting recipe is below.

 

Buttercream Frosting

• 1 stick softened, salted butter

• 2 cups powdered sugar

• 1/2 tsp vanilla

• pinch of salt

• 1/4 cup milk

Combine all ingredients & blend with a mixer.

To make the cookies extra festive for the 4th of July, we added blueberries and gold sprinkles. Be sure to tag me @maisondemings on Instagram or Facebook if you give these a try!! 

Again, if you like your cookies soft, make sure you roll the dough a little on the thicker side. I also recommend taking them out of the oven before you see any brown - you don't want to overcook them!

 

Copper cookie sheet from House Copper!