Sugar Cookies are great holiday cookies or any day cookies. These simple and easy sugar cookies hold their shape well and royal icing decorations makes them irresistible.
Sugar Cookies All Year Round
We make these simple and easy sugar cookies all the time. They are one of my favorites since childhood. I know most people have these cookies in the fall, pretty much starting out with Halloween and going right on through Christmas for their favorite holiday cookies. I think they should be a year-round treat! August you could do back to school cookies with a fun design. If you thought about it, you could easily create a cookie theme for all 12 months. I know I could!
Ingredients in Sugar Cookies
The ingredients in these cookie may be basic but the flavor is sugary, buttery and nostalgic.
- Sugar
- Butter
- Eggs
- Vanilla
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Salt
How to Make Sugar Cookies
Now for these sugar cookies I recommend you use a stand mixer for this. It helps to get the ingredients mixed in evenly. I also watch the mixer pretty close so I don't over mix. I like using a cutter for these so I can keep all the sizes the same. We do refrigerate the dough. I think it yields a better product. There could definitely be debates about this for hours from everyone out there.
They are so simple to make and turn out as buttery little bits of heaven. Now, I'm lucky in that I have a boatload of cookie cutters. Or maybe not, if you think about the cabinet space it takes to store these. So this year we have decided that anyone can have sugar cookies with just one cutter. For these cookies we used the heart mold. You could also do the exact same decoration with a round 3" cutter, or even a square cutter. These cookies keep their shapes when baking and come out soft and flavorful, which make them perfect for decorating.
Royal Icing Decorations
I am going to say that these took a bit of time to prepare. It is best to wait until the icing is dry so it doesn't bleed into other colors. It wasn't that I was working on them the entire time; it's just the drying time. Some of the cookies had a black outline, others didn't. It's entirely up to you on that one. We piped the blue first, then the white, then the red. If you are adding the black outline, do that before the red or white. For the stars, we just used sprinkles. You could easily pipe them or just use silver dots instead if you want them to be easy.
There is nothing unique about our royal icing recipe you could get probably 500 other versions on line if you prefer, but for the most part, they are all the same.
Royal Icing:
2 pounds confectioners sugar
¼ cup meringue powder
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon almond extract
warm water
gel food color, red, blue and black (if you want borders)
1. Add the sugar, meringue powder, corn syrup and almond extract into your mixer bowl.
2. Slowly add warm water to the sugar mixture and continue to blend on low speed until you have the consistency to pipe. (Adding more water will make it thinner, and less water will be thicker.)
3. Once you have the consistency you are looking for, separate the icing and add colors. Keep the icing covered, it's important so it doesn't dry out while you are working on the decorations.
More Cookie Recipes to Try:
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We know you are going to love this simple and tasty sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 13.25 ounces sugar
- 12 ounces butter
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 23.5 ounces AP flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and continue to mix until incorporated.
- In a separate bowl stir together AP flour, baking powder and salt.
- Add the dry mix into the mixer bowl and hand stir until incorporated.
- Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap and put ½ of the dough onto the wrap.
- Cover with plastic wrap and mold into a disk. Do the same with the other half of the dough.
- Refrigerate for 3-4 hours.
- Once dough has finished chilling, heat oven to 350°F.
- Generously dust a clean surface with flour and roll the dough out to ¼ inch.
- Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes and a spatula to transfer them to the baking sheet.
- Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes or until edges begin to turn lightly golden brown.
- Remove from oven and let cool on the pan.
Notes
Nutrition
Now if you find you aren't a sugar cookie lover we have a few summer ice cream recipes you might like instead. Have a safe and happy 4th of July!
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Willena Kelsey says
The patriotic hearts are beautiful. But I really want to try the chocolate sugar cookies. They sound very interesting.
You have yourself a great day !
Meenakshi Thakur says
Aww. How cute are these cookies! Your piping skills are top-notch.
serena says
Thanks so much!
Claire says
I super love this! Can't wait to make this with my younger sibs. Thanks!
serena says
So great for group baking! Makes for a fun weekend project 🙂
Seema says
These cookies look so beautiful. I will be thrilled if I canget them as close to what you have done with the icing. So beautiful.
serena says
Thanks!
Jessie says
I love these cookies and they are so great to make year round and I love the red, white and blue for to make for the 4th of July.
serena says
Thanks Jessie!
Caitlyn Erhardt says
These look perfect for the forth! Love all the tips and breaking it down to make these super simple to pull off.
serena says
Thanks Caitlyn
AISilva says
These sugar cookies look so great, my whole family will love them. I also love how patriotic yours turned out! These definitely held their shape as you promised!
serena says
Thanks!