I made sugar cookies for our Valentine Card-Making party. I used my mom’s recipe, which is my all-time favorite sugar cookie recipe. I haven’t posted it on my blog before, because the dough is a little tricky to work with, as it’s a bit sticky. But after trying four different sugar cookie recipes, my family and I think this makes the best tasting sugar cookies.
Usually I have my great helper and baker, Natalie, to help make sugar cookies for our card-making party. But, she spent the night at a friends’ house so I had to frost them all myself! (If you’re like me, you probably enjoy decorating the first 8 cookies or so … then you’re ready for them all to be frosted!)
I made hearts, lips and cupcakes … perfect for a party of 12-13 year olds and their moms, right?
Back to the recipe. The dough needs to be refrigerated before rolling and cutting the cookies. And, the dough tends to be sticky, so you have to use a well-flowered board. You end up working in a bit of extra flour into the dough as you’re getting it ready to roll out. But again, the cookies taste oh so good!
I think sugar cookies taste best when frosted with butter cream frosting (instead of royal icing or fondant). You don’t get the smooth surface, but the cookies taste so much better. I use the Butter Cream Frosting recipe on the back of the Powdered Sugar box. Sometimes I use royal icing to outline the cookies and add decorative lines and squiggles. I just ran out of time to pipe/outline the cookies this time.
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
3 cups Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp. Baking Soda
2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
1 cup Salted Butter, softened
2 Eggs, slightly beaten
3 Tbs. Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla
Directions:
1. Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda and cream of tartar. (If I don’t feel like getting out the sifter, I just whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl).
2. Add the butter and cut it in as you would for a pie crust (using a pastry blender).
3. Add the eggs, milk and vanilla to the flour mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon. Dough will be sticky.
4. Wrap dough in wax paper and refrigerate for at least 1 1/2 hours.
5. Flour pastry board and rolling pin. Roll out dough, sprinkling with flour as you go. Roll dough out to desired thickness. Cut into shapes, dipping cookie cutters in flour before cutting.
6. Bake cookies at 400 for 8 to 10 minutes (depending on dough thickness and your oven temp).
I use Silpat Baking liners, which makes it easy to remove sugar cookies from cookie sheet.
Butter Cream Frosting
1 lb. Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Salted Butter, softened
1/4 cup Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla
In a medium to large-sized bowl, add powdered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Use a hand mixer to beat the frosting until completely mixed. Separate portions of the frosting and add food coloring for desired colors.
