*This is my basic sugar cookie recipe converted to grams. For the original, standard American measurements, click here.
A good cookie base is an essential component of perfectly decorated sugar cookies. It takes a little practice, but with the right recipe and a few tips it’s very easy to bake perfect sugar cookies very time.
First of all, I would like to say, I am not an expert. I haven’t been to a fancy pastry school or had any sort of formal training, just a lot of trial, error, and experience.
LOTS and LOTS of experience.
Keep in mind, my way is not the only way, and maybe not even the best way, but it’s what I like and what works for me. The purpose of this article is not to tell you what you should do, but rather give you an idea of what happens in my kitchen as a foundation to build upon so you can come up with a method that works well for you.
I begin every single cookie project with my favorite cookie recipe. Not only is it quick and easy, it’s also a very forgiving recipe. You can find the original, printable version of my recipe in standard US measurements HERE.
Most people find this recipe easy and delicious. However, I have a handful of readers that don’t get the same results that I do, and a few others who are more comfortable weighing their ingredients. So, for these readers, I’m posting my recipe by weight. PLEASE go easy on me. I am not at all comfortable with this method, but I am trying!
I think I did okay on the conversions, but these numbers may as well be in Greek for what they mean to me, so if I goofed, shoot me an email, I’ll get it fixed. Please don’t call me stupid or leave me nasty comments. It kinda puts a damper on my day.
As for me, I still measure like my Nanny did. I call it the “old-lady method”. Nanny kept cups in her flour, sugar, salt and baking powder bins and she never ever moved them. Most of them weren’t even real measuring cups, she just knew what they were and what they did, and she got consistent results every time. If you need a little more information on measuring, I suggest this article on properly measuring dry ingredients from My Baking Addiction. It’s REALLY helpful and informative.
Of course, I use real measuring cups when I bake, but like Nanny, I never ever take them out of the bin that they belong in so my dough is pretty consistent.
Mixing the dough is pretty simple. The most important thing is to mix ingredients in the proper order. Begin by creaming together the butter and sugar, then add the egg {room temperature} and vanilla, then, after sifting together the flour, baking powder and salt, add it to the mixture little by little until a dough is formed.
Be sure the egg is room temperature and the butter is not over or under softened. Usually I set it out two to three hours before baking and let it come to room temperature. If you forget, no worries. Chop the butter into small pieces and wait about 30 to 45 minutes. It will be perfectly softened when you’re ready to bake.
Try to resist the urge to microwave it. Nine times out of ten, you will end up with a butter puddle, and over-softened butter WILL affect your dough. Once again, I’d like to send you to My Baking Addiction if you’d like to know more about perfectly softened butter. I could write a novel, but there’s no need, because Jamie already has it well covered.
When the dough is mixed, it will be soft, but not sticky and will look like this. I find that it firms up as it rests, so I often give it five or ten minutes before working with it..
For those of you who like to work ahead, I do not recommend refrigerating or freezing this dough. I’ve tried it, and it completely changes the final product. Fresh dough creates a fluffy, light, non-greasy cookie with minimal spread. In my experience, when the dough is refrigerated for a long period of time, it is harder to work with and produces flatter, greasier cookies with significantly more spread than fresh dough. I’ve also noticed that when chilled, the dough darkens and becomes crumbly and the cookies have dry crackly tops when baked.
Rather than pre-making dough, I prefer to set aside a baking day, make two to four batches of dough and use it immediately. This doesn’t mean I will hunt you down and kill you if you decide refrigeration works best. Remember, your way is the best way for you!
While the dough is resting, I set up what I call my rolling station. I gather all of the tools I need and set them up in the area where I will be working . These are parchment lined baking sheets, an offset spatula, cookie cutters, a rolling pin, and flour for dusting my workspace and dough. I prefer to roll my cookies on parchment paper, so I also have a sheet for rolling.
Beginning with a six to eight inch dough round, I lightly dust it with flour and begin rolling, turning the parchment 45 degrees at a time, until I have a 1/4 inch thick circle of dough. After baking, will expand to 1/2 of an inch thick.
Have you ever wondered how to roll perfectly even sheets of dough? It’s easier than you might think. I use rolling pin rings, which are basically big rubber bands that fit on my rolling pin to create a perfect space between the surface and rolling pin. I love them, but if these aren’t for you, there are many products on the market that will do the same thing, like Do’ Boards, the preferred tool of Cookie Crazie Pam.
If you don’t have the time or funds to pick up any of the tools above, don’t worry…you can also use square dowels. They can be found at almost any hardware and craft store. Just choose the thickness you prefer {I recommend 1/4 of an inch} place them on either side of the dough, and roll the pin over the dowels.
After the dough is rolled, cut out the desired shapes, as closely together as possible. You can use cookie cutters, or plastic and paper templates and a paring knife. Also, don’t be afraid to trim existing cutter shapes to make them work for the project at hand, or even piece together shapes from multiple cutters. Add the scraps back to the dough and continue doing this until all of the dough has been used.
When the cookies are cut, use an offset spatula to transfer them to a parchment lined baking sheet. I am pretty good at this, but if you don’t feel comfortable moving cookies once they’re cut, I suggest rolling them on parchment and transferring the entire sheet to a pan after removing the scraps.
If I happen to have extra dough, I use it to make minis or circle and square cookies to freeze. They often come in handy later.
As the sheets are filled, bake the cookies. Seven minutes at 400 degrees works best for me BUT, my oven and I are old friends. Until you are comfortable with the recipe and your oven, I highly recommend buying an oven thermometer and sitting right by the door until you know what works best. It may be five minutes, it may be seven minutes, it may even be eight. The key to perfect cookies is to watch them until you know exactly what the end result is going to be.
Keep in mind to not open the oven a whole lot while baking them. It will affect how they turn out. Just peek in here in there to keep an eye on things. It may take a few batches to get it right, but once you figure things out, the results will be pretty consistent..
Be sure not to over bake the cookies. Some recipes are meant for a little color. My recipe is meant to create a lighter, softer cookie. If you’re looking for brown and crispy, this isn’t the recipe for you.
Most of the time, the end result is a smooth flat cookie that makes a wonderful base for decorating. Every once in a blue moon the cookies have crackly tops, but I think that is from adding a bit too much sugar or letting them sit too long before baking. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it though, because they are usually hidden by icing.
Freshly baked, the cookies will be a bit fragile. I always let them cool on the sheet for at least four hours, sometimes more before moving them into an airtight container.
I prefer waiting until they are a day or two old before decorating them to reduce the chance of oil from the cookie leaching into the icing and causing icing spots.
Once again, this is how I make perfect sugar cookies every time. It works well for me, but do encourage everyone to experiments and try what works for them.
Now, for some frequently asked questions about baking:
How far in advance can you bake the cookies? I bake the cookies up to a week ahead of time and store them in an airtight container until ready for use.
Can your cookies be frozen? Yes, they freeze well after baking. They don’t need any special treatment. I don’t even waste wax paper. I just stack them in an airtight {Tupperware} container and pop them into the freezer.
How long should the cookies thaw before decorating? I have taken them out, put them on a cookie sheet and started decorating within fifteen minutes, but I am a procrastinator. It’s probably wiser to pull the container out about an hour ahead of time, give them a bit to thaw and then start. Either way, it’s not something to get too wound up about.
Can you freeze decorated cookies? Hypothetically yes. Do I do it? Not so much. I’ve done it TWICE and then never again. It’s too nerve wracking for me. Bad things can happen. Long story short, if you do decide to freeze them, layer the cookies between sheets of waxed paper, and when you thawing DO NOT OPEN THE CONTAINER UNTIL THEY ARE COMPLETELY THAWED. I could go on, but that’s a whole other post.
How far ahead of time can you bake the cookies? I would say a month or two, if you freeze them. If not, about a week, maybe a little more.
How long are the cookies good for after they are decorated? Ideally, I’d serve them within three to four days of decorating. But this isn’t always possible. The thing about cookies is that they have an amazing shelf life in most cases. Think about the cookie aisle of your local grocery store. I’m betting that fresh Vanilla Wafers and Oreos are to die for, but even if they are days or maybe even months old, they are still edible, and pretty darn good. Same goes for decorated cookies. Keep them in an airtight container, and they will last a LONG LONG time.
I’ve always been told leaveners are the ENEMY of cut out cookies. Your recipe has a LOT. Can I just leave it out? Yes. BUT, it will change the recipe. I’ve done just about everything that can be done to my recipe. The baking powder contributes more to how the cookie rises than how it spreads. If you leave it out, it will be a flatter, denser cookie. You’ll also have to roll it to exactly the thickness you’d like it to be, because it will not rise much at all.
Do I have to use confectioner’s sugar? Won’t real sugar work? Again, you can do anything you like. It’s always good to experiment. But I’ve tried real sugar and it does not produce the same cookie. They are thinner, and greasier, and spread a lot.
I don’t like almond extract. Do you have any other flavors of dough? Changing the dough is as easy as changing the flavor of the extract used. You can use any flavor that suits your taste, just make sure to use the same amounts called for in the recipe.
Why do you prefer to decorate “old” cookies? Cookies that have had a day or two to sit are less likely to leach oil into royal icing.
I followed your recipe and it didn’t work. What happened? This is one of those things I can’t help you with, unfortunately. If you measured the ingredients, weigh them. Otherwise, I’d have to be standing beside you to help. There are so many variables, oven, climate, quality of ingredients, etc. that can affect the final product. My best advice in this case is to try again, making sure that you added all of the ingredients and have not mis-measured.
This is how I make perfect sugar cookies time and time again. I hope this helps you to make beautiful cookies too. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll do my best to answer them.
The most important thing of all is to keep baking and find what you like.Stay tuned for in-depth posts on decorating with royal icing, my favorite baking tools, storing and freezing cookies, and more. Have a wonderful weekend!
For those ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookies, 375 degrees Fahrenheit is your sweet spot. It's the perfect temperature to ensure super crispy exterior edges, while leaving the center slightly underdone and, thus, doughy and fudgey. If you're feeling particularly bold, give 400 degrees Fahrenheit a go.
Recipes for sugar cookie cutouts often call for baking until the edges are firm or set. If that's the case with your recipe, your sugar cookies should be set (not brown) and no longer appear soft and melty.
Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.
Dip cookie dough rounds in sprinkles or sugar before baking. On ungreased cookie sheet, place cookie dough rounds about 2 inches apart. Bake 12 to 16 minutes or until golden brown.
Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Chilling your cookie dough before baking prevents the cookie from spreading and creating cookie disasters like below.
Generally, cookies are baked in a moderate oven — 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) — for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie. For chewy cookies, allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 3 to 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Bake at 375 degrees F until golden and tender, 12 to 15 minutes. For crispy-cakey cookies: Bake the cookies at 425 degrees F until golden and crunchy on the outside, 8 to 10 minutes. For chewy cookies: Use 1 cup light brown sugar and 1/4 cup corn syrup and omit the granulated sugar.
Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.
Once the edges develop a golden hue, you've gone too far. While overcooked sugar cookies are certainly still palatable, they'll be hard and crunchy, instead of soft and chewy. → Follow this tip: Pull the cookie sheet from the oven as soon as they've set and gained some color, but not too much.
If you've baked them until the edges turn a golden hue, they're overbaked — they'll be hard and crunchy instead of soft, tender, and chewy. Make sure to bake them until they just start to get a hint of color and they look slightly crackled across the center.
To extend the shelf life of products, many bakers use specially formulated enzymes for preservation. These naturally occurring protein compounds can keep baked goods soft while preventing crumbling and staling.
Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.
Note: Make sure your cookies are completely cooled so the frosting or icing will stick to the cookie and set up properly, otherwise a warm cookie will melt the decoration right off. It's often easier to bake cookies on one day and decorate the next.
Sugar: Cookies can be decorated with sugar before or after baking. To help the sugar stick before baking, brush each cookie with beaten egg white with a pastry brush, top with a light coating of sugar and bake. After baking, apply to sugar to wet icing or piping gel.
Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating. I like to decorate cookies directly on baking sheets so I can stick the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator to help set the icing. So place the cooled cookies back on baking sheets.
Unless the recipe tells you to grease the cookie sheet, resist the impulse. The extra grease causes cookie dough (which already contains a lot of fat) to spread. If you're concerned about cookies sticking, line the cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone non-stick mat.
Baking with oil produces moist and tender baked goods.
Because oil is liquid at room temperature, it produces exceptionally moist baked goods. Butter, on the other hand, is solid at room temp, and therefore baked goods made with it are (arguably) a tad more dry.
Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
Baking soda is most commonly used in cookie and muffin recipes. Baking powder, however, already contains an acid and a base and has a more neutral taste, which works great when baking cakes and bread.
A: Both 325 and 350 are great temperatures for baking cookies. The main difference is that cookies baked at 325 degrees will be softer and more chewy, while cookies baked at 350 degrees will be crispy around the edges but still soft in the center. Ultimately, it all comes down to personal preference!
We've found that the optimal temperature for cookie baking is 350F. It gives the butter in the dough time to melt and lightly spread before the remaining ingredients cook through.
The smaller the cookie, the shorter time in the oven. Also, don't forget that if you are making big cookies that puff up nicely while baking, the appearance of the cookies is not always enough to know when they are done.
The simple answer to this question is, meet in the middle. Cookies should (almost) always be baked on the middle rack of the oven. The middle rack offers the most even heat and air circulation which helps cookies bake consistently.
However, in general, cookies should be baked at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. If you are using a convection oven, you may want to reduce the baking time by a minute or two. You'll know the cookies are done when they are golden brown and slightly firm to the touch.
Definitely heat from the bottom but bake on the center rack. Place a thermometer inside the oven to check that the temperature is accurate--home ovens can be off by 50 degrees or more, making a huge difference for cookies. 350 degrees Fahrenheit is a good temp for chocolate chip cookies.
Youngman says chilling the dough for at least one hour before baking is crucial. An overnight sleepover in the fridge is even better. But if you can't wait, shape your dough into balls and freeze them for 15 minutes before popping them into the oven. So yes, resting your cookie dough makes better cookies.
Q: HOW LONG SHOULD I CHILL THE DOUGH? Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The longer you chill the dough, the more flavor will develop. The flour will also absorb more of the moisture so the thicker and chewier the final texture will be.
The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4"--that way, they'll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.
If you find that your cookies end up too stiff after baking, there might be something wrong with your butter-to-sugar ratio. If there is significantly more sugar than butter, you will get a hard, flat cookie. More butter will make it a bit softer.
Issues with cracking usually derive from the sugar coating, not enough or expired baking powder or baking soda, or the oven temperature isn't hot enough. Solution: Granulated sugar is more effective at drying the surface than powdered sugar.
These buttery sugar cookies are meant to be rolled out and decorated as desired. They make a great addition to a holiday cookie lineup or as a decorating activity for kids. The cookies are baked until they're smooth and just a pale golden color since they harden as they cool.
Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn't enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.
For one, the amount of flour you use will determine what kind of structure the cookie has. From there, the fat and sugar in the cookie will also determine just how hard or soft the cookie is. Most recipes that make soft cookies use less flour and more white sugar to obtain the soft texture.
While you might think an airtight container or zip-top plastic storage bag is the way to go, it will actually trap moisture inside, making the cookies soften. Instead, leave the bag partially unsealed. The cookies should stay fresh for several days.
Cookies can last in the fridge for two weeks, but eating them sooner is better. Store cookies in the fridge in a fully sealable plastic bag or plastic container.
Baking soda becomes activated when it's combined with both an acidic ingredient and a liquid. Upon activation, carbon dioxide is produced, which allows baked goods to rise and become light and fluffy (1).
Baking powder is a two-in-one chemical leavening that combines a powdered alkali (sodium bicarbonate) with a powdered acid (originally, tartaric acid). When moistened in a dough or batter, a chemical reaction takes place that produces carbon dioxide gas, inflating cookies, cakes, and pancakes.
The baking pan should be cool when it goes into the oven. Cookies will flatten when placed on hot baking pans, so when baking batches of cookies, either swap out pans or give your one pan time to cool between batches.
In order to keep them their softest, tuck a slice of white sandwich bread inside the airtight container. Just like this trick helps keep brown sugar soft, it will keep your cookies soft since the moisture in the bread will leach out into the cookies.
Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.
Cream of tartar stabilizes the tiny bubbles in the egg whites, by precluding the egg proteins from sticking together. It thus speeds up the egg white whipping process and contributes to a stable, billowy, glossy meringue, perfect for cookies, topping pies, and folding into cake.
And sure, this does seem like a fun little hack to make your cookies look more uniform, or at least uniformly round. All you have to do is take the baked cookies from the oven, place a mug (or a glass) over the still warm dough, do a little swirl and voilà, perfectly round cookies.
1. Using outline icing pipe around the outline of the cookie or shape to be filled. Use a #1 or #2 tip for this, or a pastry bag with just the very tip snipped off. Go ahead and outline a few cookies at a time, to allow the icing to set a bit.
Issues with cracking usually derive from the sugar coating, not enough or expired baking powder or baking soda, or the oven temperature isn't hot enough. Solution: Granulated sugar is more effective at drying the surface than powdered sugar.
I like the method where you first outline the cookie and when the outlining is dry you flood the cookie with runny icing. It gives the cookie a smooth look and when it's dry, you can pipe details on the cookie. Flooding cookies is easy and so much fun to do.
Roll dough between sheets of parchment or waxed paper
Rather than roll dough on a floured surface, roll it between sheets of non-stick parchment or waxed paper. Adding extra flour to dough as a result of rolling can make cookies tough.
The easiest thing to do is to brush the tops of the cookies with a little bit of water or milk, using just enough to dampen the cookie dough and no more. This will help the sprinkles stick and won't change the finished appearance of the cookie when you're done baking.
It's called 15-second royal icing because if you run a butterknife through the royal icing in your mixing bowl, the icing should blend back together in 15 seconds. This royal icing consistency holds its own, but softens or floods lightly so that any peaks made in the icing smooth out.
3. For tip sizes, my favorite tip is #2; it's great for outlining and filling in. For larger cookies use tip #3 or #4 and for smaller cookies use tip #1.
Depending on the humidity of your kitchen (or even if it's a really rainy day outside), it could take even longer for the icing to dry. I recommend letting the icing dry for at least 4 hours, or overnight (for those really humid days) before packaging the cookies.
Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Chilling your cookie dough before baking prevents the cookie from spreading and creating cookie disasters like below.
Too much sugar and butter can make sugar cookies spread and lose their shape when baked. This one requires a little patience because once you roll out your dough, you are ready to bake. Be patient and bake your cookies when the dough is really cold.
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