Delightful, Soft, Sugar Cookies

Christmas is getting close, holiday baking is well underway...so that means, it's time to share my sugar cookie recipe with you! These are my all time, favourite sugar cookies, hands down.  They are soft and easy to cut using cookie cutters.  The dough freezes extremely well for up to 3 months.  I made a couple batches of cookie dough last year before Foster was born in October and they baked up into fresh and tasty cookies for Christmas.  You couldn't tell they dough had been frozen at all! 

So come on, take a look, make it, pin it, tweet it, facebook it, stumble it, bookmark it... you're going to want this recipe!  You will go back to it again and again!

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Cookie Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Measure the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl, mix and set aside.









In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and the sugar.  Once smooth, add the eggs, vanilla and combine well.

Add the flour mixture to the butter / egg mixture a little at a time.  Mix until the dough is smooth and flour is fully incorporated.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap so that it is touching the surface of the dough.  Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.  Overnight is fine too.  If you want to freeze the dough, you can do so at this stage.

Working on a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough to the desired thickness.  Don't go too thin... they are nicer when rolled thicker.






Cut out your shapes and place them on a lightly floured baking sheet.  Nothing fancy here.  I just used a small glass.

Bake in the centre of a preheated oven at 350 F for approximately 8 minutes (depending on the size and thickness).  Here is the trick:  As soon as the cookies no longer look 'wet' on the surface, they are done!  See this picture?  Notice the cookies look wet?  Not done yet....

See these cookies?  They are done!  Once they come out of the oven, leave them on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes to set up, then transfer carefully to a cooling rack.


You can also freeze the cookies at this stage, before icing them.


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Basic Icing Recipe

1 cup of icing sugar
1 Tbsp corn syrup
1-2 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp flavoured extract (optional)
Food colouring (optional)

Measure out the icing sugar into a bowl.  Add the food colouring and flavouring of your choice.  I like peppermint or almond extract.... and add some food colouring if you like.  I'm using gel colouring to get a really bold result.

Add the corn syrup, and 1 Tbsp of water to start.  It should be thick, but you should be able to mix it smooth.  If it is still very pasty, add just a tiny bit of water at a time just until you can mix it smooth.

You can either dip the tops of the cookies in the icing, or ice each cookie with a knife, or the back of a spoon (my preference).

The cookies will need to sit for a while so the icing can set up and become firm.  If you are impatient, you could stick them in the fridge for a bit, single layer though! 

I did an added drizzle in white over top of my cookies.  If you want to add more then one colour, make sure the first layer of icing is completely set.  Otherwise, the colours of icing will just bleed together.  I decided to go completely nontraditional and do bright red and blue cookies.  Love them!

I hope you will enjoy making some of your own sugar cookies!  These ones are always well received and I often give them as gifts during Christmas.

*Alternatives:  If you don't have corn syrup for the icing, you can omit it.  The icing just wont be as shiny.  Also, think of alternatives for colouring and flavouring your icing such as, a tsp of Crystal Light drink mix or even Jello powder.  It opens up a lot of other flavour options without having to buy a bunch of different extracts at the grocery store.

Most importantly... don't forget to do some quality control.  *wink*