Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
TASTE: Perfectly balanced sweetness with a hint of vanilla and almond, for that quintessential Christmas cookie flavor.
TEXTURE: These hold their shape perfectly while baking and don’t get too hard or crispy.
EASE: Super easy. This dough is a dream to work with.
PROS: Make-ahead friendly! See my tips for freezing the baked cookies below.
CONS: Cut-out cookies are a little time-consuming, but it’s totally worth the work when you see how pretty they look!
WOULD I MAKE THIS AGAIN? Every Christmas!
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Happy Holidays!! I’m so excited to share this recipe for Cut Out Sugar Cookies with an Easy Icing.
This simple sugar cookie dough is a joy to work with, it’s almost like rolling out Play-Doh. That’s because you roll the dough out first before chilling it. I find it’s SO much easier this way and makes it so you can have little ones join in on this festive baking project.
Best of all? These cookies are super delicious! They’re sweet without being cloying, and the vanilla extract and hint of almond really take the flavor over the top.
They also hold their shape beautifully and don’t spread while baking.
I’ve also included my ridiculously simple icing recipe to go along with it. It’s my easy alternative to royal icing for people who don’t like royal icing, or don’t want to deal with finding meringue powder or using raw egg whites.
However, if you prefer royal icing or even buttercream, feel free to use whatever you want!
If you want extra tips on making and decorating sugar cookies, I’ve added two of my YouTube videos below.
This truly is the perfect Christmas Sugar Cookie recipe! I hope you love it as much as I do.
How to Make Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Tips for Perfect Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
- Measure your flour correctly – Make sure to weigh your flour for precision. If you add too much flour, your cookies may be hard and dry. If you don’t have a digital kitchen scale, use the spoon and level method instead. More on that here.
- Make sure your butter isn’t too warm – If your butter is too warm, your cookies may spread, and we don’t want that here! About 67°F is perfect. Learn more about that here.
- Use fresh baking powder – Did you know that leavening agents can lose their effectiveness before the expiration date printed on the packaging? Learn more about Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda, and how to test for freshness, here.
- Chill your dough before baking – After rolling out the dough, we’ll chill it for about an hour, to firm it up, and then cut out our shapes. At this time, you can re-chill the dough, to prevent spreading and ensure your cookies maintain their shapes perfectly. If you encounter any issues with the cookies not keeping their shape, it’s likely because the dough wasn’t cold enough when it hit the oven – try freezing the shaped dough for about 15 minutes before baking.
Can I Make Drop Cookies with This Recipe?
This recipe was designed for cutting out shapes, but if you want drop-style cookies, give my super popular Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies a try instead.
Tools for Homemade Sugar Cookies:
- Baking pan – This is my favorite pan for cookies. Learn more about cookie pans here.
- Parchment paper – I love these pre-cut sheets.
- Cookie cutters – Any should work, but I prefer metal cutters for perfect shapes. This is a great Christmas set.
- Food coloring – I highly recommend using gel coloring. Here’s my favorite set.
- For decorating – A squeeze bottle or a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip.
Easy Sugar Cookie Icing
I’ve included detailed instructions in the recipe below for both flood icing and border icing. All you need for the easy icing is powdered sugar, vanilla extract, water or milk, and food coloring (if using). Use a fork to beat all the ingredients in a bowl together. Add a little more powdered sugar to thicken, and a tiny bit more water/milk to thin it out, as needed.
How to Decorate Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
These cookies are SO fun to decorate! Get the kids involved and get creative decorating with fun colors and cute sprinkles.
Check out my videos for some more detailed decorating tips:
How to Store Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Cut-Out Sugar Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 10 days. If you need to prep these Cut-Out Sugar Cookies further in advance, check out the freezing instructions just below.
How to Freeze Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
These cookies freeze particularly well after baking. Freeze the baked, cooled Cut-Out Sugar Cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 month. I prefer a sturdy airtight container for freezing baked cookies, to protect the cookies from other items in your freezer and prevent the cookies from breaking. Defrost to room temperature before decorating or serving.
More Christmas Cookie Recipes:
- Loaded Peanut Butter Christmas Cookie Bars
- Soft & Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Gingerdoodle Cookies
- Hot Cocoa Cookies
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- S’mores Cookies
- Gingerbread Cookies
Be sure to check out my Christmas Headquarters page for more holiday baking recipes!
Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 3 sticks (339 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- 4 1/2 cups (572 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
For the border icing:
- 1 cup (125 grams) powdered sugar, sifted (plus more as needed)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tablespoons water or milk
- Food coloring, if desired
For the flood icing:
- 1 cup (125 grams) powdered sugar, sifted (plus more as needed)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 to 3 tablespoons water or milk
- Food coloring, if desired
Instructions
Make the cookies:
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until well-combined and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla, and almond extract and beat until combined. On low speed, slowly add in the flour and baking powder and beat until incorporated.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Place one dough portion between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out to 1/4-inch thickness. Repeat with the remaining portion of dough. Place the two sheets of dough on a baking sheet and chill for at least 1 hour or up to 1 day. You can also freeze for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, rerolling any scraps and cutting more shapes. Transfer the shapes to the prepared baking sheets.
- If the dough is too warm, freeze for 15 minutes or until firm again, to prevent spreading.
- Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are set and beginning to brown. Be careful not to over-bake. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Baked un-iced sugar cookies can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 1 month.
For the border icing:
- In a small bowl, use a fork to beat together all the ingredients except the food coloring. Beat in the food coloring, a few drops at a time, until colored to your liking. The mixture should be very thick but still pourable. Add more powdered sugar as needed.
- Transfer the border icing to a squeeze bottle using a funnel. You can also scoop into a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip. Before you begin icing any cookies, take a few moments to practice on a piece of parchment paper to get the feel of the icing.
- Holding the bottle or bag tip directly over one corner of a cookie, begin tracing an outline of the cookie, squeezing gently and using both hands if needed to maintain consistent pressure. I prefer to allow a little slack in my icing line as I go. If you mess up, simply wipe the icing off and start again. Allow the icing to dry slightly before continuing with the flood icing.
For the flood icing:
- In a small bowl, use a fork to beat together all the ingredients except the food coloring. Beat in the food coloring, a few drops at a time, until colored to your liking. The mixture should still be pretty thick, but will drizzle more freely than the border icing. If needed, add additional water or milk to loosen until the consistency is pourable. Pour the flood icing into a squeeze bottle or into a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip.
- Prepare as many batches and colors of flood icing as you need to decorate your cookies.
- Begin filling the interior of the border drawn on each cookie with the flood icing, being careful not to add too much that it overflows the border icing. Use either the nose of the bottle or a small toothpick to push the icing evenly over the cookie and up against the corners.
- Leave the iced cookie to dry for 24 hours. The cookies are dry when the surface is completely smooth, dry, and resists smudging when touched. Store the dried cookies between sheets of parchment paper in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.
Recipe Notes
This post was published in 2018 and has been updated with additional recipe tips and information. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
My sugar cookies have gone soft. It’s been a week since I baked them. Is there a way I can get them crisp again?
Hi Emerald! Unfortunately, once cookies are frosted, they will begin to soften over time and there really isn’t much you can do to counteract that. However, if your cookies are still unfrosted, you can recrisp them in a 350°F oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet for about 5 minutes.
If I freeze them and then cut them into their shapes, will it become hard to do that with the stiff, frozen cookies? Or should I just cut first, freeze, and then cook?
These cookies actually freeze beautifully after they’re baked! I’d recommend going that route if you’re looking to make them ahead of time.
I am excited to try these cookies but have a question. In your recipe for the cookies it states to using 1 teaspoon of baking powder but in your video you used 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder! Can you please let me know which is the correct quantity.
Thank you
Hi Pam! Thanks so much for pointing that out – we updated the recipe a couple years ago, but we haven’t been able to update the video quite yet. We’ll be sure to add this one to our list – but in the meantime, the written recipe is correct. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
This is a such an easy dough to whip up with minimal ingredients, and is fun to roll out and cut with friends or a significant other. These aren’t thick (there’s a different recipe for that) on purpose, so that they actually hold their shape for decorating and you don’t end up with crispy blobs. Perfect for decorating and fun!
Glad you enjoyed these cookies, Kate!
Hello. I wanted to ask if I can store the cut out cookie in the freezer and bake as needed?
Hi Emerald! These actually freeze beautifully after baking! Check out our tips here.
The flavor of this dough is amazing but it was a bit too floury and dry for me.
Hi Shawnna! I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the flavor of these cookies, but the texture you describe sounds like you may have accidentally added too much flour. How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe – resulting in hard, dry cookies. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
the icing tastes strange. all my kids said it tastes like medicine. it is so hard to find a good sugar cookie recipe 🙁
Oh no! The icing should certainly not taste like medicine. Is your extract expired?
Great technique that I will use from now on; however, these need salt! Taste is lacking in my opinion. Thank you for the great tips!
One of the best recipes I’ve tried for sugar cookies!
Can I add Cream of Tartar to make them keep their chewiness or would that make them lose their shape? If so, how much would you recommend?
Hi Rachel! We haven’t tried that, but I recommend trying Tessa’s Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies – super soft and beautifully chewy, especially if you chill the dough for 24-72 hours before baking it 🙂 Happy baking!
The texture on these cookies is so perfect. Crumbly and soft. These also have an excellent shelf life – i made them a week ago and they’re still perfect while most other cookies are hardening by now!
On the icing – next time I’ll definitely have squirt bottles ready. I tried to improvise and use ziplocks with a tiny cut on the corner and they came out very mess. But, delicious still!