This is the best sugar cookie recipe and all you need to make fantastic cut-out cookies for Valentine’s Day or any holiday!
I have been baking and frosting sugar cookies with my mom since I can remember and I have loved sharing that tradition with my daughter. I have really had to let go of my perfect frosting preferences and let her live out her Picasso dreams. We have been using this recipe for years and it makes the best sugar cookies. They are light and airy and perfect for decorating with your favorite frosting.
I love to use powdered sugar frosting when decorating for fun, but to impress people I use a royal icing. Royal icing can be used to make more intricate designs and your cookies will look a little fancier. You can find my favorite royal icing recipe here. However, it’s probably more fun to eat regular old powder sugar frosting while decorating and that’s probably what you grew up using!
The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract this makes the cookies!
- dash salt
- 3/1-2 cups flour You can substitute gluten free flour. I use cup-4-cup
Instructions
Step 1
- Cream the softened butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla and almond extract together.
- Next, add the flour, starting with 3-cups and adding more as needed to make dough sticky. Blend Well.
- Refrigerate the dough for 1-hour or overnight.
Step 2
- After the dough has set, roll it out and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out the dough.
Step 3
- Bake at 350 degrees for roughly 8-14 minutes. I usually start the first batch at 8 minutes and see how much additional time is needed. Depending on your altitude, oven, etc., you may need a little more or less time. I usually end up baking each batch for roughly 11 minutes.
- Cool before decorating with your favorite frosting.
This recipe really is the best sugar cookie recipe ever and you probably won’t have any left, but if you do, they freeze great! It also works really well if you are gluten free. I substitute Cup-4-Cup flour using the same measurements and they turn out delicious. With gluten free baked goods, I find that they do not taste as fresh after 1 or 2 days, so make sure to freeze if you do not eat them all within a couple of days. When you are ready to eat, just take out of the freezer and thaw. They will be ready to eat within 30-minutes!
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