Perfect Sugar Cookies!

Decorating Sugar Cookies Toghether

How To:

Perfect Sugar Cookies

• 1 cup softend Butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup powdered sugar (for icing)
• 1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract (for icing)
• 1 1/2 tablespoon milk (for icing)
• In a large metal mixing bowl cream butter and sugar. It is easier to use an electric mixer on medium speed. It just takes longer by hand.
• Beat in egg and vanilla extraxt.
• In a separate bowl, stir the flour, baking powder and salt.
• Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and beat until dough is well mixed and comes together.
• Shape into a flat disk, cover and chill in the fridge for 2 hours.
• Meanwhile, you can get the icing ready by combining powdered sugar, clear vanilla and milk. You can also use pre-made cookie icing. I prefer the taste of homemade icing.
• Stir until well blended, smooth and shiny.
• Add food coloring if desired.
• Take chilled dough out of the fridge and divide into portions which are easy to handle.
• Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchmant paper to desired thickness.
• Chill in Fridge for 20 minutes. You can roll another batch of dough at this time.
• When dough is chilled, peel off paper and cut cookies using a cookie cutter.
• After cutting out cookie shape, remove excess dough and set it aside to reroll by combining the dough scraps.
• Add cut out cookies to a chilled baking sheet. I chill my baking sheets in the freeezer.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Bake cookies for 8 to 12 minutes. Adjust time for thicker cookies.
• Cool cookies on baking sheet for 3 minutes before removing them to wax paper to cool completely. If cookie puffed up during baking gently press the top of hot cookies with a smooth metal spatula to make cookies smooth and flat for decorating.
• Once cookies are cool, use a the back of a spoon, toothpick or icing knife to spread icing on cookie. You can also pipe the icing onto the cookie. I decorate the cookie on the wax paper. In the above photo, I did not have red icing so I bought Wilton's red cookie icing. I prefer the taste of homemde icing though.