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Category: Cookies

14
Feb
2021

East Christmas Sugar Cookies Recipe

categories: Cookies

These Christmas sugar cookies are a part of the holiday tradition in my family. I’ve made them a few different ways over the years — with colored sugar, topped with mini chocolate chips, or drizzled with chocolate — but they always come out delicious.

This sugar cookie recipe gives you beautiful, golden sugar cookies, that can be soft and chewy or crispy, depending on how long you cook them.

I particularly like this recipe for Christmas because they’re simple drop cookies. My other Christmas dessert recipes are a bit more time-consuming, so this one is a nice break. And since I already have rolled out and shaped gingerbread cookies, the round cookies actually add variety!

Simple, easy, delicious!

If you’re looking for cut-out cookies to cut into fun Christmas shapes, try this easy sugar cookie recipe.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Preparation Time: 15m Cooking Time: 10m Total Time: 25m

Servings

Yields 30 cookies.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375F.
In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it’s smooth and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and mix until it’s well blended.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, and mix until you have a smooth dough.
Drop tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough onto an ungreased baking sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart (the cookies will spread a lot).
Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the edges turn a light golden brown.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Tips

Be sure that the butter is nice and soft. The softer it is, the easier the dough will be to work with.
When you add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, be sure to add them gradually: add a bit, mix until smooth, then add a bit more.
- This makes it easier to blend in the dry ingredients, so that you don’t over-mix the flour — over-mixing the flour can make your cookie kind of tough and hard.
If you want soft cookies, they’ll have to be very soft when they come out of the oven — but don’t worry, they harden a bit as they cool.
Feel like decorating your Christmas sugar cookies? Here are a few ideas for the best sugar cookies:
- I always drizzle mine with a bit of chocolate after they cool. I use the leftover chocolate from coating truffles, so it’s super convenient.
- You can roll the cookies in a bit of colored sugar before baking them. Red and green sugar can make it extra festive. Or you can roll them in a sugar/cinnamon mixture for extra flavor.
- If you flatten the cookies a bit before baking them, you can press little candies on the top, or miniature chocolate chips.
Want to make these easy sugar cookies ahead of time? Here are some tips.
- The dough freezes nicely. You can shape the dough into little balls and freeze them. When you’re ready for the cookies, just thaw the dough a few hours and then bake as directed. Cookies in no time!
- These Christmas sugar cookies stay good for a few days, but after a week or so they’ll start to harden, even if you keep them in an airtight container. That’s why I usually freeze or refrigerate the dough, or I just make them last of all my Christmas desserts. They’re so easy to make that it’s no trouble.

13
Feb
2021

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

categories: Cookies

A good gingerbread cookie recipe is a must at Christmas. There are a lot of different Christmas desserts, but there aren’t a lot of them that say “Christmas” like delicious gingerbread people!

Sure, you can buy gingerbread cookies at the store, but trust me, nothing beats homemade. This gingerbread cookie recipe will give you yummier cookies than anything you could ever buy!

The dough itself is easy to make. The only part that takes a while is cutting out the gingerbread men, and then decorating them — but that’s all part of the fun.

These cookies are always a big hit with kids. They’re not too sweet, but a bit of royal icing adds just the right amount of sweetness. And they’re a bit lighter than some other Christmas desserts, so they’re great with a cup of tea if you’re feeling a bit too full for some of the richer stuff.

Here it is!

Gingerbread Cookies

Preparation Time: 40m Cooking Time: 20m Total Time: 3h00m

Servings

Yields 30 cookies.

Ingredients

1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
3 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions

In a double boiler over medium heat, mix the molasses, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Stir occasionally, and heat until the mixture is smooth and the sugars are all dissolved.
Remove the molasses mixture from the heat, and stir in the baking soda. Let it cool.
In a large bowl, beat the butter until it’s soft and creamy. Add the molasses mixture and stir until it’s well blended.
Add the egg and stir until it’s well blended.
Add the flour one cup at a time, stirring until the mixture is just smooth each time. Don’t over-mix!
Shape the dough into a thick disk and wrap it in plastic wrap or wax paper. Refrigerate it for about 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out the cookies using cookie cutters.
Bake the cookies in the preheated oven on an ungreased baking sheet for 12 to 15 minutes.
Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack.
Let the cookies cool completely, and then decorate them!

Tips

If you don’t have a double boiler, you can use an aluminum bowl over a pot of boiling water for this gingerbread cookie recipe. You can also just use a regular pot on a burner.
- Sugar and molasses burn really easily, so set it on the lowest possible heat setting, stir it very frequently, and watch it like a hawk!
For this gingerbread man recipe, it’s important to add the flour just one cup at a time, because it’s easier to blend in that way. So you end up stirring the flourless, which gives you a more tender cookie.
The dough needs to refrigerate so that it’s easier to roll. It’ll get less soft as it cools down.
- If you leave it in the fridge too long and it’s too hard to roll out, don’t worry. Just let it warm up for 10 or 15 minutes and you should be good to go.
The thicker you make the cookies, the longer they’ll have to bake, but it’ll also be easier to get a soft cookie. If you prefer crispy gingerbread cookies, just roll the dough flatter.
You can re-roll the scraps left over after cutting the cookies. But the more you re-roll the dough, the tougher the cookies get. So be sure to cut out all the cookies you can, then gather up all the scraps and re-roll them together.

07
Feb
2021

Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe

categories: Cookies

If you’re looking for easy sugar cookie recipes, you’re in the right place. This is one of the easiest and the best sugar cookie recipes I know. They’re buttery and sweet, and the dough is just so easy to work with. And the best part? They’re made to be rolled and cut out with cookie cutters!

What could be better than shaped sugar cookies?

Of all the easy sugar cookie recipes I know, this is the one I use the most often. It’s perfect for any occasion – you can make bunnies and chicks for Easter, ghosts, and witches for Halloween, anything for any special event!

And once the cookies are baked, you can decorate them with this sugar cookie icing. It dries hard and shiny, and your cookies will look really professional.

And now, here it is, my favorite of all easy sugar cookie recipes!

Easy Sugar Cookies

Preparation Time: 20m Cooking Time: 20m Total Time: 40m

Servings

Yields 24 cookies.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla

Instructions

In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until they’re smooth and fluffy.
Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture, and mix until it’s smooth and well blended.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until it’s smooth.
Shape the cookie dough into a thick disc, and refrigerate it until it’s firm but not hard, 30 minutes to an hour.
- Be sure to cover the dough with wax paper or plastic wrap!
- You want the dough to be firm enough to roll out without it being super sticky or too mushy, but you also don’t want it so hard that you can’t roll it out.
Preheat your oven to 375F.
Lightly coat the dough with flour, and roll it out on a lightly floured surface until it’s about 1/4 of an inch thick.
Cut out the cookies with cookie cutters. Re-roll the scraps, using more flour if you need to keep it from sticking, and cut more cookies until you’re out of dough.
Arrange the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes, until the edges start to turn golden.
- The cookies should be at least half an inch apart from each other. They’ll grow a bit, but not so much that they’ll lose their shape.

Tips

I tend to like cookies that aren’t too sweet, and a lot of times I use less than the usual amount of sugar. If you like things nice and sweet, you might want to add an extra 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup of sugar.
If you prefer a softer, chewier cookie, you can roll the cookies a bit thicker, up to half an inch thick. They’ll need to cook a bit longer, but once the bottom turns golden, the cookie itself will still be nice and soft.
- Thicker cookies might lose their shape a bit more. There’s more dough to puff outwards.
If you like crisper cookies, you can increase the cooking time. Let the golden brown creep up the sides a bit, but don’t leave them too long, or the bottom might burn.
When you’re making cut-out sugar cookies, it’s best not to over-roll the dough. So cut out as many cookies as you can from the dough, and reroll it only when you can’t get another cookie out of it.
- Over-rolling the dough makes it tougher, and you get a tougher cookie.