My life has been peppered with bad sugar cookie experiences. I love a good sugar cookie, but they seem like a holiday kind of cookie, so it took me many years of unsatisfactory holiday baking to come across my favorite sugar cookie. Usually it seems that they either break easily, puff too much to decorate well, run straight out of the shapes you cut and bake into one big blob-tag cookie party, or just don’t taste good.
This recipe is a combined two Christmas effort. Last Christmas I made cookies out of Gourmet magazine and hated the cookie, but loved the frosting. I saved the frosting recipe until this Christmas I combined it with a modified cookie from Country Living. Now I am happy. So happy that I make sugar cookies for all holidays now. For Valentine’s Day we made a batch of these and splatter painted them with neon pink and white frosting (we called them eighties revival cookies), and for Christmas I make half the dough red, and decorate them with a little more care. So… the moral of the story is that armed with a great recipe and a decent arsenal of paste food coloring you can achieve almost anything you set your mind to.
Sugar Cookies
Using a hand mixer, beat 2 c. room temp butter with 1 1/2 c. sugar. When well creamed add 2 eggs plus 3 egg yolks and mix well. Add 1 t. salt, 2 t. vanilla, and 5 c. flour. Mix until flour in well incorporated. Flatten into 2 disks, wrap in parchment and refrigerate for a couple of hours. When ready, roll out on a lightly floured surface, cut into shapes,(especially if you are doing elaborate shapes, put them back in the fridge for about 15 minutes at this point), and bake at 325 degrees (on a parchment lined baking sheet) for about 12 minutes, or until almost browning around the edges. Just slide the whole sheet of parchment onto the counter to cool.
Frosting
In a medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat together 1 lb. powdered sugar, 4 t. powdered egg whites (you can buy this in any cake decorating department – Wal Mart even), 1/3 c. water, 1 T. lemon juice, and 1 t. vanilla. Increase mixer speed to high and beat until icing holds stiff peaks. Use paste food coloring to color, and decorate however you want to. This icing can be thinned with water.
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I think those are the prettiest cookies I’ve ever seen. I want one!
I love the little sandwich buttons. Any pics of decorated Christmas ones?
Rachel,
I have never blogged a day in my life, but on this one I am hooked! Between you, your mom, and Bekah, I am continually inspired. The above cookies look like they came straight out of the Southern Living magazine. Are you sure you’ve been a Northerner all your life? 🙂 You’re putting me to shame!
Are those hot cross cookies? 🙂
oh man those look so good!!!
Gorgeous cookies! I’m not a sugar cookie person, but I do love decorating things.
I need to try these.
I have been in search of a great sugar cookie recipe for years.
So far my eighteen year old son tells me I haven’t found it.
Thanks for the recipe. I gave up trying to find the perfect sugar cookie (to use w/ cookie cutters) because I hate working so hard and getting everyone’s hopes up for a raunchy, and ugly biscuit. haha! Your cookies are beautiful! I will be sure to try this recipe!
If they taste as good as they look, I’m all about this recipe! Thanks!
I’ve never been a fan of plain sugar cookies. They must be iced. But they also must taste good. I will try these soon and see how we like them!
They look good, I’ve never been able to make a cookie that held it’s shape and was tasty at the same time.
I saw a funny “craft” and it made me think of your church craft blog. This crafter gave me permission to link it.
http://www.jenniferseverywhere.blogspot.com/
We went ahead and made them. http://www.flickr.com/photos/11166284@N08/
Rachel,
I want to make these today with the kids but I do not have powdered egg whites. Must I use them or is there something I can use as a substitute?
Thanks
Crystal-
I’m sure you can leave them out, it would just make a different icing. Powdered sugar frosting tastes great, it is just the texture you use the egg whites for, as they make a beautiful frosting that sets up hard fairly quickly. If I didn’t have the meringue powder on hand, I would just do a thicker frosting. Good Luck!
I’m guessing it’s a way of making royal icing without the risk of salmonella. I’m sure you could find a similar recipe elsewhere. (But the thicker frosting is easier for kids to work with. 😀 )
My old standby, joyofbaking.com has a good royal icing recipe, with two variations. (It’s funny because the way Rachel talks about Charles van Over pretty much describes my devotion to Stephanie Jaworski.)
These sound yummy. The other day I tried to make some sugar cookies but they did not turn out to well. Then tasted like ashes. I must have added to much baking soda. 🙂
My kids just love sugar cookies..great recipe! two thumbs up here 🙂