Best Cut Out Christmas Sugar Cookies with Icing
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‘Tis the season! These Best Cut Out Christmas Sugar Cookies with Icing are a classic holiday treat, loved for their buttery almond flavor and soft yet crisp texture. These cookies are perfect for decoraintg with icing, sprinkles or other festive embellishments.
It truly is the best times of the year and one way to celebrate it is to make COOKIES. Holiday cookies are totally in…it’s like the thing to do. Everyone is baking away making their favorites…gingerbread, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate caramel sugar cookies, Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Snowball Cookies or these simple Christmas cookies with frosting and sprinkles!
My mom makes these cookies every year so I asked her for the recipe and made them myself. My mom was raised in Sibley Iowa, a small farming town in the Northwest corner of the state. They not only ate the best comfort farm food around, but they ate the best sweet treats as well. Every year their church would put together a cook book of everyone’s favorite recipes and this just happens to be one of them. These are actually called “Deluxe Sugar Cookies. Very special. Also known as Mary’s Sugar Cookies.”
Thank you Mary…your cookies are amazing!
Ingredients:
Cookies:
- Butter: I love the butter flavor in this recipe! The butter also helps the cookies crisp up slightly.
- Confectioners Sugar: Confectioners sugar sweetens the cookie.
- Egg: 1 egg binds all the ingredients together.
- Pure vanilla extract: A little vanilla helps flavor the cookies.
- Almond Extract: A little almond flavors the cookie giving it that classic almond cookie smell and flavor.
- All purpose flour: All purpose flour is the best flour to use for the structure of cut out sugar cookies.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda helps the cookies rise.
- Cream of tartar: Cream of tartar helps the cookies rise while also giving the cookie a chewy texture. It also helps the cookies not brown!
- 1/2 teaspoon salt: A little salt balances all the flavors.
Icing:
- Confectioners Sugar: Confectioners is the key ingredient to icings or frostings because it dissolves quickly and easily creating a smooth, thick and creamy consistency.
- Room temperature butter: Butter adds some flavor, but it also helps the icing set.
- Warm water: Warm water helps the sugar dissolve creating a smooth consistency.
- Pure vanilla extract: Vanilla is used to flavor the icing.
- Almond Extract: Almond is used to also flavor the icing.
- Food Dye: The ideas are endless with the colors you can create with icing!
What’s the difference between using confectioners sugar and granulated sugar in sugar cookies?
This is so interesting to me! There is quite a difference when it comes to what sugar you choose in your sugar cookies. Confectioners sugar (also known as powdered sugar) helps create a more tender, melt-in-your mouth cookie with a smoother texture that works well for icing. Whereas granulated sugar provides more structure creating a more crisp cookie. I prefer confectioners sugar in cut-out cookies and granulated sugar in a traditional sugar cookie.
Tips for Success:
Cut out sugar cookies can appear to be difficult, but truly they are not. They are more time consuming than anything. Here are a few steps to help you make the perfect sugar cookie for icing!
- Read through the entire recipe before starting – this helps so much! It will help prevent mistakes and prepare you ahead of time.
- Grab all of your ingredients and measure – this also helps prevent mistakes and helps reduce messes.
- Do not over mix the dough – it will create a tough cookie if you do. Just mix until combined. If you need to use a spoon to mix by hand that’s okay!
- Do not over-bake! Underbaked sugar cookies are still delicious, but over baked unfortunately are not. The edges should not brown at all.
- Let the cookies cool completely before frosting. If they’re too warm, the frosting will spread.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. These are a lot of fun to make with kids. I simply bake the cookies ahead of time and prepare the icing, but I let the kids dye it whatever color they want. Although it’s popular to make Christmas Cookies, this recipe could be used for all sorts of occasions like Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving, baby showers, weddings, etc. Enjoy!
Not to mention, they look so darling on platter. So if you have any holiday parties to attend, these are your cookies!
Best Cut Out Christmas Sugar Cookies with Icing
Cut-Out Sugar cookies are a classsic holiday treat, loved for their buttery flavor, soft yet crisp texture. These cookies are perfect for decoraintg with icing, sprinkles or other festive embellishments.
Ingredients
Sugar Cut Out Cookies
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
- 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
- 1 large egg, room temp.
- 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Icing Recipe:
- 3 cups confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 2-4 tablespoons water
- food coloring and sprinkles
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar; set aside.
- In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and mix for another minute, scraping down sides of bowl.
- Lastly, slowly add the bowl of dry ingredients and mix on low until combined. Careful to not over-mix.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat.
- Divide dough in half and roll out 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes and place on baking sheet. Bake 7-8 minutes. Cookies shouldn’t brown at all so watch carefully. Let cool completely before frosting.
- To make the frosting beat the powdered sugar and butter on low speed. It will be crumbly. Next add the vanilla and almond extract and 1 tablespoon of water and beat until it comes together. Continue to add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until the frosting reaches the desired consistency. Divide the frosting into bowls and add food coloring of choice and mix with a spoon.
- Frost cookies, decorate with sprinkles and enjoy. The frosting will lightly harden, but be careful when storing them on top of each other in a container as they may smudge.
Notes
The amount of cookies this recipe makes depend on the size of your cookie cutters. To keep the cookies soft, I add a piece of bread to the container that I am storing them in. Cookie dough can be frozen for up to 3 months. Baked cookies can be frozen unfrosted for up to 3 months.
So cute! We haven’t made sugar cookies yet but they are on the to-do list!