I have been craving these yummy Sugar Cookies for weeks now, but I haven't been able to get myself motivated until I realised they would be perfect for Valentine's Day. It isn't like they are hard or take a lot of time (usually), but I wanted to try a couple of different things this time. One of those things was I wanted to roll them out. Most people are saying "well duh - of course you roll sugar cookies out" - but I actually hardly ever roll my cookies out. Rolling out cookies takes more of a time commitment than I usually have - you know with the chilling and the rolling and more rolling and you can only bake a few at a time...I am all about the fastest way to get to eat them. I don't make cookies when I think I might want some later - I make them because I want them RIGHT NOW. So most of my cookies are drop cookies - even Sugar Cookies - and I think they are just as good. The other thing I wanted to try was to freeze the cut out cookies before baking them. My plan is to make several batches of cut out Christmas Cookies and freeze them so I don't have to do them all at once.
I love this Sugar Cookie recipe. I got it almost 12 years ago from a co-worker, and every time I think I've lost the recipe card it magically reappears somehow. Someday I will get it into a more permanent location! Alright lets get to it!
Sugar Cookie Recipe:
3 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Butter
2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
2 tbsp Cream
The first step is to put the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a food processor, pulse to blend. Add the butter in chunks to the flour mixture and pulse to combine.
The flour and butter should form little clumps - just like a pie crust. (Can you see the tiny little clumps?)
Next, combine the eggs, sugar, vanilla and cream in the mixer. Add the flour mixture and start mixing.
The mixture will start out looking like it is way too dry - keep mixing! The dough will clump up into small balls, but will actually smooth out after a minute or so. This picture is between those two stages - I almost forgot to take a picture - but you can still see the little clumps.
The dough should be thick and moist - but not sticky - with little (tiny) dots of butter in it. Once it is mixed you can start rolling it out - no chilling or waiting. If you want to you can chill it, but I wouldn't leave it in the fridge for more than 30-60 minutes.
Use as little flour as possible to keep it from sticking to your rolling pin and surface. I like to roll mine out onto parchment paper - less sticking and it makes transfering the cookies to the cookie sheet easier. I split my dough into 4 balls and rolled them out to about 1/4 inch.
Then I cut as many cookies out as possible and removed the extra. This will help keep the cookies in the correct shape. Since I did it on the parchment paper, I could peel the cookies off and move the cookies to the cookie sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. You want them to be barely brown around the edges for soft cookies. The ones on the left are a little over done - but still tasty!
Let them cool completely before storing or frosting.
For the Frosting:
1/2 cup Butter (at room temp)
1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 cups Powdered Sugar
3 Tbsp Cream
Cream butter and vanilla. Add powdered sugar until combined. Mix the cream in and continue mixing on high/medium high for around 5 min. This is a pretty basic frosting, but I think the cream adds an extra yumminess to it. You can add any flavors or colors to it - just rememebr to add them slowly so you don't make it too thin. This frosting should be nice and thick.
Since I made these for Valentine's day I wanted to do something fun - but not too girly. I thought the conversation hearts were a great way to have fun with the cookies - as well as make it a little nostalgic. I did wish I had some sprinkles and I thought doing two different colored frostings would be cute - maybe next time.
I also froze a few cookies overnight. I just stuck some on a cool cookie sheet and placed it in the freezer until they were frozen, then put them in a ziplock. The next day I preheated the oven to 325 degrees and cooked them for around 13 minutes. They did rise up, but not as much as the unfrozen ones, so I was pretty happy with how they turned out.
I hope everyone has a tasty Valentines Day!
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