Classic Sugar Cookies

Sugar Cookie Ingredients

Here’s everything you need to make these tasty sugar cookies with icing.

Powdered Sugar: We use powdered sugar in both the sugar cookie dough and the icing. Powdered sugar has a super fine texture and helps to ensure your homemade sugar cookies are perfectly tender, sweet and fluffy inside.

Softened Butter: Not only is butter a delicious addition to baked goods in general—it also adds much-needed moisture and structure to your dough for a rich, perfectly tender cutout cookie.

Vanilla and Almond Extracts: Vanilla and almond are classic flavorings for sugar cookies. The warm, nutty and marzipan-like flavor of almond extract is perfectly sweet without being overwhelming. The vanilla extract brings a rich, sweet taste to both the cookie dough and the icing—it’s a flavor enhancer used in endless dessert recipes for good reason!

Egg: The egg acts as a binder, holding your sugar cookies together and promoting a nice spread as they bake.

Flour: Like most baked goods, these cutout cookies need flour to achieve their structure. Make sure to measure accurately!

Baking Soda: Don’t skip this leavening agent—it’s necessary for an evenly-baked cookie with a just-right rise.

Cream of Tartar: Cream of tartar helps create the right consistency, resulting in homemade sugar cookies that are perfectly chewy.

Milk: When mixed with powdered sugar and vanilla, the milk helps create a smooth, sweet and ultra-creamy cookie icing.

Food Color (Optional): Want to add some color to your sugar cookies with icing? You’ll want to use food color. Just remember that a little goes a long way!

Sprinkles or Colored Sugar (Optional): After spreading icing on each cookie, decorate each one to your liking with different colors of candy sprinkles or colored sugar to match the occasion. You can’t go wrong with festive red and green for your Christmas sugar cookies!

How to Make Sugar Cookies with Icing

We consider this to be the best sugar cookie recipe for beginners—it takes just 5 simple steps to make and decorate a large batch of homemade sugar cookies! And the best part? You can let your creativity run wild when decorating. Here’s a quick overview of how to make sugar cookies.

Mix and Chill Dough

Beat together powdered sugar, softened butter, almond extract, a teaspoon of vanilla and 1 egg on medium speed—or just mix it with a spoon—until well blended. Next, you’ll stir in the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar to complete your dough. It should look uniform at this point. Divide the dough in half, shape each half into a disk and wrap both disks in plastic wrap before refrigerating for at least 2 hours.

Heat Oven

Set your oven to 375°F to heat while you roll and cut your cutout cookies.

Roll Dough and Cut Shapes

It’s time to make your sugar cookie cutouts! Set out the chilled disks of dough on a lightly floured surface, and roll each disk with a rolling pin to ¼-inch thickness. Now, this is the fun part—making the cutout shapes! Use cookie cutters between 2 and 2½ inches to cut out your homemade sugar cookies, then place the cutout shapes on ungreased cookie sheets. Make sure to leave at least 2 inches of space between the cutout cookies to allow for spreading.

Bake

Place your cookie sheets in the oven and bake for homemade sugar cookies that taste just as good as they look! Don’t chow down yet though. Let the cookies sit for a minute on the baking sheets, then carefully transfer them one by one to cooling racks so they can cool completely.

Add Icing

We might be biased, but this is our favorite step! Make your icing by beating powdered sugar, milk and vanilla together until smooth. If you want to use fun colors to decorate, separate your icing into a few different bowls and tint each one with a different food color. Spread the icing on each cutout sugar cookie and decorate each one to your heart’s content—we love using candy sprinkles and colored sugar! You’ll want to let the icing set for about 4 hours at room temperature before storing your sugar cookies.

The Best Dough Thickness for Cutout Cookies

Trust us—an even, ¼-inch thickness is ideal for perfectly-baked sugar cookies with a just-right texture. Measure the thickness with a clean pastry ruler if you have one in your kitchen! If you roll out your cookie dough even a little too thin, the cookie cutouts can become too fragile for handling. A dough that’s too thick is unlikely to cook all the way through—and will probably result in an overly dense cookie.

Festive Sugar Cookie Decorating Ideas

Grab your cookie cutters, icing and festive sprinkles—it’s time to make this sugar cookie recipe your own! Once you’ve learned how to make sugar cookies that taste great, why not make them stand out with sweet, colorful toppings? From perfectly piped designs using brightly colored royal icing to thinly spread buttercream frosting topped with yummy candy sprinkles, there are plenty of fun (and delicious) ways to decorate homemade sugar cookies. On the lookout for festive holiday design inspiration? Here are some of our favorite ways to decorate Christmas sugar cookies.

Snowman Sugar Cookies: If you really want to impress with your cookie presentation, we’ve got you covered. Transform your tasty homemade sugar cookies into adorable melting snowmen with our melted snowman sugar cookies recipe! The quick and easy decorative design is a major hit with kids and adults alike.

Easy Christmas Sugar Cookie Cutouts: Don’t want to stick to just one cookie design? You can switch it up for every cookie, or try out a few different simple techniques! Select cookie cutters that fit your final vision, then decorate with different colors of icing, candy sprinkles and colored sugars. Check out our recipe for easy Christmas sugar cookie cutouts for some inspiration—we love making cute sugar cookie Christmas trees, mittens, stockings and stars for holiday gatherings!

Pre-Bake Decorations: As an alternative to decorating with icing, try sprinkling these cutout sugar cookies with granulated or colored sugars before baking. This is a quick and easy way to jazz them up if you’re not a big fan of sweet icing or buttercream!

How to Store Sugar Cookies

Happen to have leftover sugar cookies? That might be a first! Luckily, these cookies keep well when stored as directed.

At Room Temperature: If you leave your homemade sugar cookies out on the counter in an airtight, covered container, they’ll stay fresh for about 3 days at room temperature. Add wax paper in between each layer of cookies to prevent sticking.

In the Freezer: Won’t be able to finish your cookies within a few days? No problem! When stored correctly, these sugar cookies will keep well in the freezer for up to 2 months. Store them in flat-bottomed containers with airtight lids, making sure to line the bottom of each container with wax paper or plastic wrap.