Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies
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Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies are the best! Soft centers, crispy edges and no chilling needed for this Classic Sugar Cookie Recipe!
My Gram’s Cut Out Sugar Cookies are one of my all time favorite treats. We’ve made them for every holiday for as long as I can remember and they truly are the best cookie.
They are soft in the center and crispy on the outside with a rich buttery flavor that balances perfectly with the sweetness of the cookie and the sugar on top!
If you’re looking for the perfect sugar cookie recipe to make this holiday season (or just because!) – look no further. You will love these!
Why these are the best sugar cookies?
I’m biased, but I think these are the best sugar cookies. I’ve eaten them for every holiday since I was a kid. Here are a few reasons why we love them!
- Buttery and sweet.
- Soft in the center and crispy on the edges.
- Easy to make. You only need 7 ingredients.
- Customizable – Use whatever cookie cutter decorations or sprinkles you like. These cookies are great for any occasion.
- Perfect for royal icing, classic icing, or sprinkles!
- Last for weeks/freeze well.
- No chill (who wants to wait for cookies?!)
Ingredients:
To make these easy cut out sugar cookies you will only need 7 basic ingredients.
- sugar – We use granulated white sugar. We can’t recommend any substitutes.
- softened salted butter – We only bake with salted butter. NEVER margarine! Leave the butter out for 1-2 hours before baking OR pop it in the microwave in 10 second increments. DON’T melt your butter! It should be bendy and pliable, not hard.
- egg
- milk – We have made this recipe with heavy cream, regular milk, and lactose free milk – all work!
- vanilla extract -shhhh, don’t tell baking purists.. you can use imitation 😉 Vanilla extract is so expensive!
- all purpose flour
- baking powder – make sure your baking powder is fresh!
Substitutions
We usually love to provide you with substitutions for our recipes -but sadly can’t provide many substitutions for this recipe. It only has 7 ingredients and is really intended to be made as is!
Cookie Cutters: You can use this recipe with any cookie cutter decorations you like. We use both big and small ones, and this recipe is great for any holiday.
Food Coloring: You could add a few drops of food coloring to this dough to dye it.
Sprinkles: Use any sprinkles you like on these cookies!
Butter: We always use salted butter when baking. You can sub unsalted butter but it won’t be as tasty.
Doubling: This recipe can easily be doubled, but it makes 6 dozen as is – so that’s a lot of cookies if you’re doubling it!
Gluten Free: We haven’t tried making these gluten free, but I think it might work with 1:1 flour. If you try it, let us know. You can also try these Almond Flour Sugar Cookies for a gluten/grain free option or Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies for a gluten free version!
Butter/Sugar – We can’t offer substitutions for butter or sugar in this recipe. I don’t recommend swapping with any ingredients.
How do you make sugar cookies from scratch?
- In a bowl, cream softened butter & sugar. Add egg, milk, and vanilla extract. Stir in flour and baking powder until combined and sugar cookie dough has formed.
- Roll out the dough. Use your favorite cut out shapes and place them on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 5-8 minutes until lightly browned on the edges. Cool the cookies on a sheet for 3-4 minutes until they’re firm, then move to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
Pro Tips:
If your dough is sticky: You probably over softened your butter. Put your dough in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes-1 hour and it will be fine to roll out!
Roll the dough to 1/6 inch thickness. It’s super easy to control the thickness of your dough with this rolling pin. You can roll the cookies thicker for softer cookies or thinner for crispier cookies.
Add sprinkles before baking: If you’re using sprinkles or colored sugar, add it before you bake.
Gram’s Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
Once you roll the dough/put your cookies on the sheet – gather your scraps, form them into a ball, and re roll.
Toppings:
Years ago my gram would ice every single cookie by hand. She would outline the cookies perfectly, using a different colored icing for each cookie. It would take hours. I’m not as skilled as her so now we just use colored sugar rather than sugar cookie icing!
- Colored Sugar – We used classic colored sugar on these cookies.
- Sprinkles – You can use regular sprinkles on these cookies.
- Royal Icing- We don’t use royal icing but you can! Here’s a link to a royal icing recipe.
- Powdered Sugar Icing: My Gram mixes powdered sugar and milk until it’s a thick consistency. You can dye it with food coloring and use a piping bag (or ziploc bag) to ice. 1 cup of powdered sugar to 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Add more milk until it’s thick but only add a TINY bit because it gets thin quickly!
FAQ’s:
Your cookies can be spreading for a number of reasons. Here are some tips to prevent cookies from spreading: Put cookies on a COOL baking sheet, never put them on a hot baking sheet. Use parchment paper instead of a greased baking sheet. Sometimes the grease on the sheet can make them spread more! Chill your dough- You can put your dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour before rolling to prevent your cookies from spreading.
Drop cookies are made by dropping the dough into balls on a baking sheet. Cut out cookies are made by rolling the dough thin and using cookie cutters. Drop cookies are typically thicker and have add ins while cut out cookies are thin and plain.
No. Cut your cookies out before baking.
This is likely because of your dough. Scroll up and read our tips for preventing your cookies from spreading!
Most sugar cookies last up to 2 weeks but are most fresh if eaten within a week. See below for storing tips.
Sugar Cookie Tools:
There are a few tools that will help you to make the best sugar cookies ever!
Rolling Pin I HIGHLY recommend this rolling pin. It has little wheels on the side that allow you to control the thickness of the dough. No guessing or rolling some cookies out too thin or too thick.
Christmas Cookie Cutters – Here’s a link to our favorite Christmas cookie cutters but you can use any cookie cutters for this recipe!
Parchment Paper– I always bake cookies on parchment paper, while my gram uses greased cookie sheets. It’s up to you!
Colored Sugar– Any sprinkles or colored sugar will work with these cookies. Here’s a link to our favorite.
Piping Bag (only for icing) If you want to ice the edges of these cookies you can use a piping bag or even a plastic ziploc bag with the corner cut very small.
Food Coloring – This recipe doesn’t require food coloring but you can dye the dough if you’d like!
Tips for the best cut out cookies:
After making these cookies many times, we have a few tips to ensure you get the best cut out sugar cookies!
Gram’s Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
Watch when baking! These go from perfectly golden brown to burnt quickly!
Measure your ingredients correctly – It is super important to measure your ingredients correctly, specifically the flour! Check out this tutorial on how to measure flour correctly.
Use flour when rolling out the dough. Make sure to flour your work surface and the top of the dough/rolling pin when rolling out the cookie dough. Otherwise, the dough will stick/be difficult to transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet
Enjoy with a mug of warm Hot Chocolate!
Storing Instructions
We recommend storing these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
How long can you keep cut out sugar cookies? Up to 2 weeks if stored correctly. These cookies stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (if you don’t eat them all before then!)
Can you freeze cut out sugar cookies? Yes, you can freeze sugar cookies! Store in your freezer in an airtight container or ziploc bag for up to 3 months for maximum freshness. We recommend freezing without frosting. Colored sugar can bleed into the cookies when frozen – but it won’t affect the taste!
Dough: The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours. Leave the dough at room temp for an hour before rolling the dough. I have not tried freezing the dough.
You can make these cookies for any holiday – not just Christmas! Here they are with food coloring added and easter cut outs
Other delicious Christmas cookie recipes:
These are some of our favorite Christmas Cookie recipes! You can check out our Healthy Christmas Recipes for other ideas!
Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter softened (2 sticks)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 and prepare a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
- In stand mixer cream softened butter & sugar.
- Add egg, milk and vanilla extract. Mix until combined.
- Stir in flour and baking powder until combined and a nice sugar cookie dough forms.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough to ¼ – ⅙ inch thickness. We recommend this rolling pin for perfectly rolled cookies.
- Use your favorite cut out shapes to cut out the cookies. Use a thin metal spatula to transfer cookies to a greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles if you like.
- Bake for 5-8 minutes until browned on edges
- Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
- Cool the cookies on a sheet for 3-4 minutes until they’re firm, then move to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
- Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks for freshness!
- Note: Once you roll the dough/put your cookies on the sheet – gather your scraps, form into a ball and re roll. Don’t waste!
Can you make the dough ahead of time and put in the refrigerator?
I really don’t recommend this. IT’s best to make the dough and roll out immediately. If you chill it, it’s difficult to work with.
This is an easy and fun recipe and they taste great. We have made it several times. Although I am so confused as to what you are using to cut out cookies with because we only manage to get *maybe* 2 dozen cut outs every time, and some of our cookies are quite thin. I can’t see how anyone is getting 70.
The amount of cookies you get is going to vary depending on the size of the cookie cutters you use, but this makes way more than 2 dozen cookies unless you’re using huge cookie cutters.