I have made a lot of sugar cookies in my time. Valentine's Day is the ultimate sugar cookie holiday for us. I normally don't make sugar cookies at Christmas, but they are a necessity on Valentine's Day.
Here is the batch I made yesterday for school parties, Ben to take to work, the girls to give to friends, and for us to just eat. Yum! These are good to eat plain. I put the unfrosted leftovers in my freezer, and they disappear very quickly.
But frosted they are absolutely divine! This dough is pretty dry and stiff which is a good thing because it allows you to not have to refrigerate the dough before you roll it like many sugar cookies recipes. That is one reason I love this recipe--you can make it and cut it right after--no waiting. Because sugar cookies honestly take enough time without refrigerating the dough to get it hard enough to roll and cut. That being said, you need a stand mixer to make these and be sure and mix them long enough that the dough comes together into a big dough ball. My daughter was making these and called to me, "something is wrong!" The dough was all crumbly in the mixer. I told her she just hadn't mixed it enough. She turned the mixer back on and in a few more minutes is was perfect. The cookie recipe is my mom's from when I was growing up. The frosting recipe is supposedly from the New York Magnolia Bakery, but I can't verify that. I can verify it is very good. The key to it is beating it a long time after each addition of powdered sugar. With both of these recipes, you can easily double them. The top picture of cookies is 2 recipes of sugar cookies, and I doubled the frosting to frost all of them. Happy Sugar Cookies! Enjoy!
Perfect Sugar Cookies (*makes 24-30 cookies depending upon your cookie cutter size)
1 cup butter, soft
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
4 tsp baking powder
Preheat over to 375. In a stand mixer cream the butter and sugar together. Add egg and mix well. Add all other ingredients and mix until forms a stiff dough ball. Roll out on floured surface to 1/4 inch thick--these are best rolled thick! Then place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 5-6 minutes. Do not over bake. These are much better underdone than overdone. Cool before frosting.
Best Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup butter, soft
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
Beat butter until smooth. Add 2 cups powdered sugar and mix--this will be dry and crumbly, then add milk and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy. Add in 1 cup of additional powdered sugar at a time beating really well after each cup until it is thick enough to frost.
Mmmm divine!
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