Recipe: Holiday Sugar Cookies

These Holiday Sugar Cookies will be your go to cookie for this holiday season. I developed this recipe to be the absolute simplest and fastest cookie recipe you can find. This dough does not require chilling after it’s made. Simply roll out your dough and bake straight away! My favorite part of this cookie recipe is that it can be customized to include any flavors you’d like. Vanilla extract is the base of these cookies, but change that out for almond, lemon, peppermint, or orange extract for a unique holiday spin. Lemon and orange zest lend their beautiful, fresh citrus flavor, but also add pretty speckles in the dough itself. Lastly, add a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/8 tsp of nutmeg for a simple spice cookie.

With all of that being said, I love these cookies just the way they are…enjoy!

Yield: ~ 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 stick (1⁄2 cup) butter, softened to room temp 1⁄2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, room temp
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp milk
1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 tsp salt
1⁄2 tsp baking powder

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Add the egg, vanilla and milk and mix until well combined. Next, add the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix until there are no visible spots of flour and the dough starts to stick together. Using your hands, form the dough into a ball and cut it in half. Form both halves into disks and set aside.

On a clean counter top, place half of the dough ball down. Sprinkle flour lightly all over the dough ball. Using a rolling pin, start to roll the dough out until it reaches 1⁄4”-1⁄8” thickness. Be sure to rotate the dough a quarter turn often to ensure the dough does not stick to the surface and sprinkle flour if necessary. Use cookie cutters of choice to cut out cookies and transfer to the lined baking sheets. Re-roll the scraps to get the total yield.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until firm to the touch, but not browned. Cookies should stay pale in color. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Note: Use any shape cookie cutter that you’d like, the yield might be less depending on the size of the cutters. To ensure the cookies hold their shape perfectly, refrigerate dough for at least one hour before rolling and baking. Dough can be refrigerated for up to 48 hours.