How to Make Sugar Cookies

Basic, but never boring, the tender, buttery sugar cookie has an invitation to almost any celebration. This classic rendition can be a blank canvas for festive shapes and designs, or a vessel for bold flavors. Master it, and almond-flecked linzers, spicy ginger-molasses rounds or sweet, salty chocolate-hazelnut sablés are all at hand. We'll teach you how to make these treats, and how to prepare beautifully smooth royal icing for decorating with sprinkles, paint or anything your heart desires.

Equipment

An electric mixer. Or better yet, a stand mixer. Some recipes say you can make sugar cookie dough by hand, but those recipes are wrong (or, at the very least, not as good). You need a mixer’s force to properly cream together the butter and sugar, creating a light and fluffy dough.
Parchment paper and a rolling pin. Parchment is indispensable in preventing sticking when rolling out dough. Don’t own a rolling pin? You can always use an unopened wine bottle.
Standard rimmed half-sheet pans (13 by 18 inches). Plural. If you only have one, pick up another. You’ll want to bake as many cookies as possible at once, and the rim helps prevent cookies from sliding when pulling them from the oven.
Any sort of cookie cutters you fancy. Circles, squares, snowflakes, gingerbread people, stars, dreidels, reindeer: You name it. A jar or glass works in a pinch.

Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has tips on the best tools for holiday cookie baking.

Classic Sugar Cookies

By Alison Roman

Yield 4 1/2 dozen cookies

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Everyone needs a good sugar cookie recipe. If you can master the very simple technique behind this one dough, you have several variations at your disposal, most likely without a trip to the grocery store.

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Butter, , Egg, Flour, Sugar, , Dessert, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day

Ingredients

3 ½ cups/510 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½ cups/340 grams unsalted butter (3 sticks), at room temperature
1 ¼ cups/250 grams granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Frosting, glaze or royal icing
Edible glitter or food-grade luster dust

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium-high until the mixture is light, fluffy and pale, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down sides of the bowl, and add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, and beat until everything is well combined, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed.
Add dry ingredients all at once, and mix on low speed just until incorporated.
Scrape dough out of bowl and divide it in half. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap, patting into a 1-inch-thick disk. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 5 days.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out dough, one disk at a time, on lightly floured parchment paper or work surface until it's about 1/8 inch thick. Create shapes, using a lightly floured cookie cutter. (Alternatively, using a knife, cut the dough into squares, rectangles or diamonds.) If at any point the dough becomes too soft to cut and cleanly remove from parchment paper, slide it onto a cookie sheet and chill for a few minutes in the freezer or refrigerator. Gather any dough scraps and combine them into a disk. Roll and repeat the cookie-cutting process, chilling as necessary.
Place shapes onto parchment-lined baking sheets 1 inch apart and bake until cookie edges are lightly browned with sandy, pale centers, 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Cool the cookies on a rack, if you have one. Otherwise, let them cool on the pan. Decorate with a glaze, royal icing, frosting, glitter, food-grade luster dust or whatever you'd like. Don’t forget the sprinkles.

Tip

Cookie dough can be made 5 days ahead and refrigerated. Cookies can be baked 2 days ahead, wrapped tightly and stored at room temperature.

Tips for Rolling Dough & Cutting Shapes

For the best cookies, getting the proper thickness is key. Too thin, and the cookies will turn into crackers. Too thick, and they’ll be doughy. Here are tips to help you roll the dough to just the right depth, and to cut cookies that will give you a world of decorating options.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

• First, make some space. Rolling out dough takes up a bit of space, so clear off those countertops before you begin.

• Use parchment paper for rolling for best results (though a well-floured work surface will also work). To roll out the dough, you’ll want to lightly dust a large piece of parchment paper with flour. Roll out the dough until it starts to stick a bit to the parchment, then lightly dust the top of the dough with a bit more flour and cover it with another piece of parchment. Flip the whole thing over, peeling off the bottom piece (and saving it so you can repeat this process).

• Keep an eye on the thickness of the dough. You want it to be about the thickness of a graham cracker, or, if you have a ruler handy, no thinner than an eighth of an inch. Don’t worry about making it a perfect circle or rectangle.

• Cold is best. Regardless of the shape you’re cutting out, or the method you’re using (by hand, with a cutter, glass jar), you’ll want the dough to be chilled. If it gets too warm and flimsy, it’ll be challenging to cut out clean shapes and move. Put the dough back into the fridge to firm up if it starts to soften.

• A cute cutter does not always make a cute cookie. No matter how appealing the wide range of cutters may be, there are some that don’t actually make great cookies. In particular, avoid shapes with small, delicate features. Those smaller parts of dough are doomed to tragedy: getting stuck in the cutters, burning before the rest of the cookie is baked through, or just breaking off. And they’re challenging to decorate.

• Broad cookies make better canvases. Shapes with a lot of surface area (circles, triangles, diamonds, stars) yield the greatest success. They bake more evenly and offer multiple decorating options.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

• No cookie cutters? A wide-mouth glass jar or cup will do the trick. Or use a knife to cut diamonds (as seen above), squares or rectangles.

• Cut as many cookies as you can. When it’s time to cut, dip the cutters in flour to prevent sticking, and cut the shapes as close to one another as possible to maximize your dough.

• But don’t go too far. Gather any scraps and reroll the dough, but no more than twice. After that, the dough will become overworked and tough.

Royal Icing

By Alison Roman

Yield About 1 3/4 cups

When it comes to decorating sugar cookies, there’s nothing more iconic or festive than that thick, glossy royal icing. You'll want to mix the ingredients until they're fluffy, and until the icing flows fluidly from the whisk. Once it's the texture of hot fudge, it'll be ready to apply to your cookies. After it dries, at least an hour later, it’ll take on a matte, smooth appearance resembling an eggshell, a perfect canvas for your most inspired designs.

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Confectioners' Sugar, Egg White, Frosting, Salt, Dessert, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Kentucky Derby, New Year’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day

Ingredients

3 large egg whites
3 ¾ cups/453 grams confectioners’ sugar (a standard 1-pound box)
Pinch of cream of tartar
Pinch of kosher salt
Food coloring (optional)

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites till light and foamy, about 1 minute.
Add powdered sugar, cream of tartar and salt to egg whites and continue to whisk, stopping to scrape down bowl as necessary, until extremely light and fluffy, almost like shaving cream.
Thin icing with water by the tablespoonful until it has the viscosity of hot fudge. (This is the ideal texture for decorating.) Depending on your egg whites, this could be 3 to 4 tablespoons of water.
If you'd like to tint the icing different colors, separate icing into small bowls. Add food coloring to each bowl using only a drop or two at a time, and stir thoroughly to combine, until desired color is achieved. Icing dries out fairly quickly, so keep covered until ready to use.

Tinting Icing and Preparing Pastry Bags

The pristine white finish of royal icing is particularly elegant, and striking in its simplicity. But everything is a little more fun in color. Tint it with food coloring, use it like glue for sprinkles and dragées, or paint it directly onto hardened icing.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

How to Tint the Icing

For colored icing, make a batch of white royal icing, and divide it into smaller bowls. (One batch can yield up to three different colors.) Using a spoon or fork, mix in food coloring until you reach your desired shade. Cover with plastic wrap, with the cling film pressed directly on the surface, until you’re ready to use it.

For deep hues, you’ll need more food coloring than you think. Depending on the intensity, it’s possible to use half a bottle. Keep in mind that traditional food coloring contains a lot of liquid, so adding enough for that vibrant red can alter the viscosity of the icing. To preserve the consistency, add little to no water when making the icing, using the food coloring as the thinning liquid.

Gel food coloring can be a game changer here. (Betty Crocker makes some, but they are also widely available on Amazon.com and at professional baking stores.) The color is more concentrated, and it contains virtually no liquid. So a little will go a long way, and adding a lot won’t affect the viscosity.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

How to Prepare a Pastry Bag

To apply icing, you can use any large reusable or disposable pastry bag (at least 10 inches long), with a small metal tip for precision. A tip with a round 1/16-inch opening is best for more detailed designs, but for most purposes, one with a standard 1/8 inch opening will serve you well.

If you’re a once-a-year baker, a resealable plastic bag with a small (1/16-inch) hole cut out of the corner will do the trick.

To ensure all the icing gets in (and not on) the bag, insert the bag, tip facing down, into a tall glass, and fold the top down over the glass. Alternatively, hold the bag with your less-dominant hand, and fold the top over your fingers. Spoon the icing into the bag, filling it about halfway. Be careful not to overfill the pastry bag, or the icing will spill out of the top. Pull up the top of the bag, and twist it where the icing meets the bag to close it off.

Piping, Flooding & Painting

Here are the techniques that elevate a simple sugar cookie to the spectacular. Piping and flooding can take a little practice, so take your time and consider making double batch of icing. And remember: extra sprinkles and dragées conceal all flaws.

Piping

You can use the icing bag like a pen to draw lines, swirls or any other designs that are as simple or complex as you like.

To pipe, hold the tip of the bag 1/4 inch above the cookie and about 1/8-inch away from the edge. The icing should be runny enough that you should not need to apply too much pressure, but it may be useful to practice on a plate or piece of parchment paper beforehand.

If there are air bubbles in the pastry bag, a few gaps in the line could appear when you are piping. You can always quickly fill them in — just make sure to do so before the icing sets.

Flooding

To create a smooth, evenly frosted appearance, you’ll want to “flood,” or fill, the surface of the cookie with icing. While a pristine white coating can be striking in its simplicity, fresh icing can serve as a glue for sprinkles, edible glitter or colorful sugars. Alternatively, it can be left to dry until hardened and used as a canvas for painting.

To begin flooding, trace the outline of the cookie you’re decorating. This will serve as a sort of barrier: Think of this as a line you’re going to color inside of. With the pastry bag, start on the outside and work inward, filling in the space as you go. The icing should spread a bit to fill in any gaps. If you spill a little over the side of the cookie, use a paper towel to clean the edges before the icing sets, which can happen rather quickly.

For a more rustic (and kid-friendly) appearance, you can always forego the pastry bag and spoon icing directly onto the cookie. Dollop some in the center, and using the back of spoon, spread the icing out to the edges, almost as if you’re saucing a small pizza.

Painting

For a more modern, slightly neater approach to colorful decorations, try painting directly onto the surface of an iced cookie. No fancy skills required: If you’ve ever painted anything, you can paint a cookie.

Pick up some edible glitter or luster dust from a professional baking store. Mix a small amount of the glitter or luster dust with a neutral spirit like vodka until it reaches the consistency of watercolor paint.

Dip a small paintbrush into the mixture and paint directly onto a flooded cookie using swift, one-stroke motions. Start with something simple like stripes or dots, then graduate to more complex designs.

Sprinkles & Other Decorations

If piping an intricate design falls outside your wheelhouse, there are other options that are equally festive. Sprinkles and dragées provide all the holiday cheer you can imagine, while a simple dusting of sugar or cocoa is a lovely, low-maintenance possibility.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Once cookies are decorated, they can be kept in an airtight container between layers of parchment (as padding and protection) for up to three days.

Sprinkles and Dragées Sprinkles can be applied to raw dough before baking or used on just-iced cookies. Dragées, or oversize sprinkles that look like beads, can be applied only onto fresh icing.

Decorative Sugars Sprinkling cookie dough with sanding sugar before baking is a great way to add color and crunch. It’s coarser than regular granulated sugar, and won’t melt once baked. Pearl sugar (which resembles pretzel salt) or Demerara sugar (similar in flavor to brown sugar, but with larger crystals) can also be used before baking, or sprinkled onto fresh icing.

Chocolate Dip baked cookies in melted chocolate (no need to temper it), then sprinkle them with flaky salt, sprinkles or chopped toasted nuts before storing them in the fridge.

Cocoa and Powdered Sugar Dusting baked cookies with powdered sugar or cocoa powder (or both) can be a less-is-more approach, and great for any last-minute decorating needs.

Variations on the Basic Cookie

These recipes are all basic variations on the master sugar cookie dough. With a few adjustments, you can get wildly different (and delicious) results.

Linzer Cookies

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Lightly spiced, jam-filled linzer cookies (a smaller version of the classic linzer torte) are a traditional sandwich cookie with a tender texture and subtle nutty flavor that comes from finely ground almonds in the dough.

As with sugar cookies, which benefit from the addition of frosting, the dough for a linzer does not need to be too sweet: It’s filled with a tangy raspberry jam and finished with plenty of powdered sugar. A hole in the top of the cookie gives the signature stained-glass-window effect, making it one of the most effortless and impressive treats you could make this holiday season.

Recipe: Linzer Cookies

Cocoa-Hazelnut Cookies

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

The salted cocoa-hazelnut cookies are a classic slice-and-bake cookie, ripe for improvisation. Not into hazelnuts? Pistachios, almonds, even chocolate chunks are great here. Don’t worry too much about getting the perfect cylindrical log; the dough should even out most imperfections as it bakes.

Recipe: Salted Cocoa-Hazelnut Cookies

Spritz Cookies

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Our basic dough recipe makes for an excellent spritz cookie. Load a cookie press (think of a caulking machine, but with cookie dough) with dough straight after mixing (no need to chill) and push out a desired shape onto parchment paper.

Recipe: Spritz Cookies

Ginger-Molasses Cookies

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Think of these ginger-molasses cookies as a cross between a gingerbread man and a chewy molasses cookie. The molasses gives them a softer texture with a decidedly adult, almost caramel flavor. Instead of rolling or slicing these cookies, this rich, soft dough is perfect for rolling into balls and coating in coarse sugar before baking.

Recipe: Ginger-Molasses Cookies