Basic Sugar Cookies
- Comments()
- Prep Time 90 minutes
- Total Time 2 hours
- Yield Makes 32
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Assorted candies, sprinkles, or colored sugars, for decorating (optional)
Directions
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In large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture; beat until combined. Divide dough in half; flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic; freeze until firm, at least 20 minutes, or place in a resealable plastic bag, and freeze up to 3 months (thaw in refrigerator overnight).
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment. Remove one dough disk; let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Roll out 1/8 inch thick between two sheets of floured parchment, dusting dough with flour as needed. Cut shapes with cookie cutters. Using a spatula, transfer to prepared baking sheets. (If dough gets soft, chill 10 minutes.) Reroll scraps; cut shapes. Repeat with remaining dough.
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Bake, rotating halfway through, until edges are golden, 10 to 18 minutes (depending on size). Cool completely on wire racks. To ice cookies, spread with the back of a spoon. Let the icing harden, about 20 minutes. Decorate as desired.
Cook's Note
Use flour on utensils to keep dough from sticking: Dip the cookie cutters, and dust the spatula before transferring uncooked dough to a sheet. Rolling dough between two sheets of floured parchment will keep it from sticking to the rolling pin.
I’m not sold on this recipe at all with these cookies tasting quite bland. Try doubling the vanilla or maybe adding another teaspoon of almond extract and be very stingy using too much flour for dusting.
Recipe for basic sugar cookies!
Just tried this recipe today for my family's christmas eve gathering and the icing as well!!! They were a hit. I used a cookie cutter baking pan (cookie mold baking pan??) and they were awesome. These cookies held the shape very well and was a huge hit. The icing was your typical sweet icing but everyone loved it especially the kiddos!!! This will be my go to sugar recipe for the future!! Thank you martha stewart
Thank you, Martha! My roommates and I loved these cookies! They were gone in a day. You're the best!
I use this recipe ALL THE TIME whenever I make sugar cookies, which, is alot. I make sugar cookies at Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Halloween and for my daughter's school functions. I even make them just for fun between holidays. I use different cookie cutout shapes and I get told all the time that my cookies are great!
I love this recipe, just made heart shaped ones for daughters Valentine's day party at school!
This is my favourite sugar cookie recipe! I literally make it for every holiday. I normally refrigerate the dough in the fridge overnight so that is very chilled. Also after the cookies have been shaped, I place them on a cookie sheet and chill them in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking them. It allows them to keep their shape when they are baked.
these were so great! a versatile recipe ( i added green colour, didnt have paste -, used a lot of liquid food colour ( green ) and it worked so well for my Christmas Trees; added cocoa powder to make chocolate version- and i have to say "I AM GOOD!"- they were delicious and looked so professional. Merry Christmas!
I have used this recipe for years successfully. Try this technique: Divide dough into two discs. Place each disc between two sheets of plastic wrap. Roll to desired thickness. Place each sheet of dough, in wrap, in freezer for 15 minutes. Remove, cut and follow cooking instructions. No flour needed for rolling!
This cookie was so dry and rock hard, I thought I was going to break a tooth. I made sure to follow the directions very carefully so I know its just not a good recipe.
My post (below) was cut off? What I wanted to state was:
After reading other comments regarding the texture as dry
after reading other comments regarding the texture as dry
Thank you so much for all the responses in NOT to make this sugar cookie recipe -- I just want a moist sugar cookie -- with awesome frosting!
(Can not find my awesome recipe)
If the dough is too crumbly, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of milk. :D
martha, please adjust this recipe. the dough is too dry and impossible to roll out.
Recipe worked out fine for me. I even added a little extra flour to dough mix, so as to not have greasy cookies. I did not freeze my dough, though, I just refrigerated for 1/2 hour then rolled out. Tasted very good!
There is something wrong with this recipe. my husband and I tried it and the dough was dry. We couldn't roll it out properly. uhhhh well We tried to make 3 cookies and that worked lol
I just baked 4 batches of these cookies. I actually made the dough a month ago and froze it. They turned out beautifully! Almost like a shortbread cookie, not too sweet, which I appreciate. The only problem is I want to eat too many!
Do NOT use this recipe! The dough is extremely dry and crumbly, you cannot even roll it out for cookie cutouts or shape it for drop cookies. Very very dry, not a good recipe at all.
I did not like the results I got with this recipie .. it felt like it was missing some ingredient .. so I made it 3 times to the exact specifications of the recipie .. each time it was awful. Very difficult to work with and very very dry. I will not make these cookies again.
These did not turn out well. The dough was dry and crumbly and difficult to work with. The cookies were extremely dry as well. I won't be making these again.
I had 13 kids from ages 3-14 use the dough to make enough cookies for the 90 guests at my workplace's (retreat center) New Years Celebration. It worked fantastically and the kids loved the opportunity (think it was their highlight of youth programming). Only difficult part was the dough got a bit dry after being rolled out many times. The cookies are not too sweet, which was great! Perfect for kids! Highly recommend.
I loved these cookies. Very easy to make and rolling the dough was so easy. I forgot to flip the first batch midway and after I did it the second time, they tunred out even better. This was an excellent recepie to use with the kids.
These are the worst sugar cookies I have ever had, which is unexpected, because everything else that I've made from the Everyday FOOD magazine has turned out great. These are terrible.
A very similar recipe in is the Martha Stewart cookbook but with 2 T of brandy. I had no brandy so added 2 T orange juice and had NO problems with dryness. However, I think if you follow the recipe and add the dry ingredients slowly, you can just stop when you have a good consistency. Especially in the winter, I find I often need to reduce dry or add wet to baked goods.
These are HORRIBLE. Do not waste your time. Dry, curmbled, dough was difficult, wish it had sofented up. Made 6 batches because I could not believe how HORRIBLE these were. Tried in commercial and residential gas and electric, and yes, I followed the directions. I have worked in test kitchens for years, and this recipe should have only found its way into the trash! Keep looking ladies, this is not the recipe to try.
I also had a bit of crumbling, But I looked at martha's other sugar cookie recipes and one said to add milk. So I added two tablespoons milk and it was perfect. Everyone said they we good enough to have been from a gourmet shoppe. plus my daughter had a blast.
Easy to do with kids but dry I think too much flour or maybe it needs 2 eggs or something
Once the dough reached an oatmeal texture, I mixed it together using my hands and ended up rolling and cutting the dough after just 5 minutes of refrigerating (it crumbled to bits when I refrigerated it longer). I then chilled the cookies again before baking. Following this technique, the cookies turned out great!
These were terrible for me too. They turned out crumbling and dry. I added an extra egg and 1/2 stick of butter just so they would stay together enough to be rolled.
Don't waste your time or ingredients on this recipe.
These came out horrible, too dry and crumbly. Not enough butter or eggs, too much flour. Simply awful.
I could get these to turn out...very dry...would mix well. Any advice?
I could get these to turn out...very dry...would mix well. Any advice?
I have made these cookies many times now; they are fabulous. They bake up very nicely and are a real treat during Christmastime.
I love this cookies !!!!
Baking is an act of love.
I love this cookies !!!!
Baking is an act of love.
I love the sound of these basic Sugar Cookies. My kids and I are going to make a heap of these just before Christmas for our family for Christmas gifts, we are also giving Gifts in a Jar. I didn't want to spend heaps this year, but wanted to give something from the heart of our family.
I love baking cookies with my nieces - it has been a tradition in our family for 4 generations now. We use all kind of shapes for our holiday cookies but our favorite is the Aunt Chick's Jolly Santa Cookie Cutter Mold. It wouldn't be Christmas without him and my nieces love to decorate him the "non traditional" way but he still is as cute as can be and that is the fun of it right!
kids love basic cookies...I made them for years....kids had them before the last amen and the adults go t there. it was funny.I made them just for the kids.
You can also use confectionary sugar on the rolling pin and to rool them out.
dragonwyer/JAX