There are a few recipes that we turn to every holiday season, and this is one of them. This is a workhorse of a cookie recipe. Why? Well, it has everything you need for good cut-out sugar cookies. They mix up easily, and they are full of sugar and butter so they keep well. This is a firm dough that can be rolled out and cut more easily than Play-Doh, and yet it turns out a meltingly delicious cookie. They are firm yet tender, with a very buttery flavor. If you sandwich them with a soft filling like buttercream or Nutella the cookies soften even more.
More pictures, decorating tips, and recipe below...
Labeling any recipe "Best" is a risky proposition, but these have stood the test of time and many, many batches.
A few more tips:
• The dough freezes perfectly. This is a very large quantity, so roll out a few sheets of dough and freeze flat in the freezer between wax paper and plastic wrap for quick cut-out cookies later.
• When you take the chilled dough out of the fridge you may need to let it sit for a few moments before it is soft enough to roll out. The high quotient of butter makes this a very firm dough.
• That firmness makes these perfect cut-out cookies for children; if you roll the dough at least 1/4 inch thick children should have no problem cutting and picking up cookie dough shapes. The dough doesn't tear easily or get too soft like other more delicate cookie doughs.
Decorating ideas:
• Ice with a sugar glaze then sandwich with Nutella between two cookies.
• Glaze with warmed jelly then sandwich with another cut-out cookie on top.
• Drizzle with melted chocolate.
• Ice with royal icing and stick on candy dots for decoration.
Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
between 8 and 12 dozen, depending on size
3 cups butter, softened at room temperature for an hour
3 cups sugar
3 eggs
6 ounces cream cheese (3/4 of a standard cream cheese package)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons lemon zest
9 cups flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and add the sugar. Cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until golden. Add the cream cheese and again beat until well incorporated. Add the flavorings and lemon zest.
Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl then add, bit by bit, to the butter/sugar mixture.You will have chosen a large bowl for this particular recipe, I hope - mine was overflowing by this point and I ended up doing the final mix in a large plastic bag.
Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour - preferably overnight.
Heat the oven to 350° F. Divide the dough into smaller balls and roll out 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out cookies.
Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes, depending on thickness. The small, thinner ones started browning after about 8 minutes, and I didn't want these brown at all. The larger ones had a slight golden bottom after 11 minutes, which was perfect for my purposes.
Let cool before icing or decorating, and store in a tightly covered container.
Wow this makes a huge amount of cookies!!! Hmm will have to give it a try and will definitely be whipping out the big bowl for this one.
view Sarah's profile
It does divide just fine so don't be afraid to do that. But yeah, if I am making this kind of dough I like to freeze a bit!
view faith's profile
A couple of weeks after the original post, but I just wanted to say that this is a fantastic recipe. I made these cookies with my four-year-old niece, and they turned out beautifully. We opted to sandwich them with sour cherry preserves or dark chocolate ganache, which balanced out the sweetness of the dough. They were the hit of the family Christmas party. This one is definitely going into my recipe files.
view Leslie in Portland's profile
I just have to say that this is indeed the BEST COOKIE RECIPE EVER!!!
I have coeliac disease and therefore cannot use normal wheat so all my recipes have to be made with special gluten-free flours (like rice etc) - and this generally makes baked goods either taste less than yummy or really hard to use (pastry for example is awful to try and roll out and cut and get into a pie dish - it just disintegrates when you try to pick it up)
Using this recipe with my gluten-free flour made an easy to use dough that made the most delicious cookies that stayed moist and delicious for days over the Christmas period
I halved the recipe and still had enough for two trays of cookies and enough dough left over to freeze - after freezing it still worked perfectly
So I used it as a base for the lemon meringue pie I made instead of struggling with pastry - it worked wonderfully - came out of the dish cleanly without any extra oiling on the dish itself - and tasted divine - the almond flavouring added something to the pie that we all liked
This has instantly become my fail-safe cookie/pie base recipe - I'm going to try a non-sweet version to see if it works for savoury pies too!!
Thank you apartment therapy kitchen - I will treasure this recipe forever.
view Violetsrose's profile
I'm going to have to try these. We usually use a mix and it usually isn't amazing...
I'll have to scale it down a bit though.
Any good mixtures for icing? I tried martha stewart's, and although i didn't have the meringue powder, did it the egg white way, it came out horrible. It was way too thin even though i had everything measured exactly, and now matter how much powdered sugar i added, it wouldn't thicken. I have the meringue powder now and am tempted to try again, but also worried.
view jmorey's profile
This is the BEST cut out cookie recipe I have ever made and made them with my 5 and 10 year old daughters. It's like we made perfect "Martha Stewart" cookies. If you keep the dough chilled it bakes up with perfect edges!! I have to say I have never been a fan of cut out cookies. I only did it because my girls loved to do it and you should do it with your kids, but now I will make this recipe every year for Christmas.
view Shawnee1707's profile
This cookie is amazing! Such a great recipe and it was worth the labor that it took to make such a huge amount of dough. I had my doubts... the massive proportions and the dough that seemed way too sticky. A couple of tips: definitely use the almond extract (it adds so much to the wonderful flavor); I divided the dough in 4 portions so that it would chill quickly; I put the dough in the freezer before rolling it out, after rolling it out and after cutting with the cookie cutters (this keeps the shape of the cutter); and lastly I put a little almond extract and a couple of splashes of maracino cherry juice in the royal icing which went perfectly with the flavor of this cookie. This will replace all other sugar cookie recipes!!! THanks!
view cjwhite55's profile