Read on to discover a delightfully tasty and easy sugar cookie recipe.
Jump to RecipeI feel like sugar cookies are often overlooked in the cookie world. They don’t seem particularly exciting and are easy to forget about.
But when you take a bite of a truly good sugar cookie… oh man. It’s GOOD! And kind of hard to stop eating, haha!
The recipe I’m about to share with you is the one that my family has made since I was a baby and probably before that. It’s so good!
I went through a period where I wanted to try out other sugar cookie recipes just in case I was missing something. For all I knew, maybe I thought these cookies were so good just because I always had them at Christmas time when I was a kid?
I had to know. So I tried about 50 million different sugar cookie recipes, give or take a few. Ok, so more like a dozen.
But you know what? It turns out that nostalgia had nothing to do with the irresistibleness of my family’s cookie recipe. Time after time, recipe after recipe, nothing beat this one.
And you know what else I learned when I was trying all those other recipes? Not only is this one the tastiest, but it’s also the EASIEST! Seriously. No having to let the dough chill or anything. It does not get better than that!
So are you ready for a sugar cookie that is just the right amount of soft? Where the frosting and cookie blend together so perfectly that the mere thought makes your mouth water?
Then buckle in and let’s get these cookies going!
Table of Contents
Cream the butter and sugar
First, cream together 1 cup of room temperature butter and 1 ½ cups of sugar until it starts to look a little bit fluffy. Scrape down the sides with a spatula.
Beat in the wet ingredients
Then beat in 2 eggs, 1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla, and 1 teaspoon of almond extract. The almond flavor is subtle but really takes the cookies to the next level.
Mix in the dry ingredients
Next, mix in 4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda until the dough starts to form a ball.
Roll out the dough
Now the fun part! Lightly sprinkle your work surface with some flour and roll out the dough until it’s just over ¼ inch thick. You don’t want to add too much extra flour when rolling out the dough or it will make the cookies drier.
Cut out the cookies
Cut out the cookies with cookie cutters or an upside-down cup and place them an inch apart on ungreased sheet pans.
Continue until all the dough is used. Be careful not to overwork the dough when you reroll it. Just smush the leftover pieces together without kneading and roll it out again.
Bake the cookies
Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes. The cookies will still look pale, but the undersides will be a light brown.
Move the cookies to cooling racks and let them cool.
Make the frosting
While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting by beating 6 cups of powdered sugar with 2/3 cup of softened butter. Don’t go too fast, or you and your kitchen will look like a sugar bomb exploded. I may or may not have done this before…
Once you’re done, it’ll just look like crumbs.
Then beat in 1 tablespoon of vanilla and ¼ cup of milk. It will come together nicely into a dense frosting.
You can mix in food coloring, if desired.
Decorate!
See? I told you this was an easy sugar cookie recipe!
Now you’re ready to frost the cooled cookies any way you like! If you’d like to make them look extra cozy, check out my Decorated Sugar Cookies tutorial.
Enjoy!
I like these cookies best after they’ve been sitting for about a day because the frosting soaks in just enough to make them perfect, but they are still super delicious freshly frosted, too!
Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to a week. They also freeze really well if you want to save some for later.
Some holidays just aren’t complete without sugar cookies, right? In my house, we make them for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and on Halloween we make chocolate sugar cookies.
Comment and let me know your favorite time of year to make sugar cookies!
The BEST Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Cream the butter and sugar together with a mixer until it starts to look fluffy. Scrape the sides down.
- Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and almond extract.
- Mix in the flour, salt, and baking soda until all incorporated and dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
- Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough to just over 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut out your cookies and place them 1 inch apart on an ungreased sheet pan.
- Continue until all the dough is used. Be careful not to overwork the dough when you reroll it. Just smush the leftover pieces together without kneading and roll it out again.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. The tops of the cookies will still look pale, but the undersides will be a light brown.
- Move the cookies to cooling racks and allow to completely cool before frosting.
- The calorie count includes the frosting.
Frosting for Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 1 Tbls vanilla
- 1/4 cup milk
Instructions
- Carefully beat the sugar and butter together. Keep the mixer on low or the sugar will go everywhere. When it's all mixed, it will just look like crumbs.
- Beat in the vanilla and milk until everything is incorporated.
- You can add food coloring if you want.
