Best Ever Sugar Cookies
These best ever sugar cookies are tender, chewy (or crispy...your choice), melt in your mouth and smothered in light, whippy buttercream. No chilling required!
Ingredients
Best Ever Sugar Cookies
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter 3 sticks or 24 Tablespoons, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract optional, but we LOVE it
- 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar see recipe notes
- 1 teaspoon salt
Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract see recipe notes
- 2-4 Tablespoons heavy cream see recipe notes
Instructions
Best Ever Sugar Cookies
- To the bowl of stand mixer, mix the butter until light and fluffy. Add the granulated sugar and cream together.
- Add the eggs an egg at a time and mix. Continue mixing until fully incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract and almond extract. Mix together.
- To a medium-sized bowl, add the dry ingredients: all purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar. Whisk together with a fork.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until completely combined. Don't be too zealous with the mixing, but make sure you have a cohesive mass of dough.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees regular bake or 325 degrees convection. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (my favorite cookie sheet here, affiliate link)
- Lightly flour a countertop or pastry mat.
- Turn the dough out onto the counter and split into a few pieces.
- Working with a piece at a time, roll the dough to about 1/4 of an inch thick, flouring a little as needed, though be careful to not over-flour the dough. If you want a crispier cookie, roll the dough a little thinner to 1/8 of an inch.
- Using a cookie cutter (affiliate link), cut shapes out of the dough. Try to place your shapes as close together as possible to use up as much dough without needing to re-roll. Place cut cookie dough on a cookie sheet with a little space in between each cookie.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes (or 325 convection for 8 minutes). For a crispier cookie, bake an extra minute or two. Let cookies cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan to cool.
- Continue this process, re-rolling scraps together once or twice until all your cookie dough is used up.
- Let cookies cool completely before frosting or freezing.
- To Freeze: Stack cooled cookies. Place cookies in an airtight container and freeze. Pull out when ready to frost, and frost from frozen.
Buttercream Frosting
- To the bowl of a stand mixer, or to a bowl with a handheld mixer, add the room temperature butter. Whip together with the whisk attachment or beaters. Whip for a few minutes until the butter is light and airy looking.
- Add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract if desired. Whip together.
- Add heavy cream as you are whipping the frosting, beginning with 2 Tablespoons and increasing up to 4 Tablespoons depending on how you prefer the consistency of the frosting. Add food coloring if desired.
- Continue whipping until light, creamy and whiter in color (the buttercream loses its yellow, buttery color and turns more white the longer you whip it for).
- Frost cooled cookies or frozen cookies with buttercream. Pipe around edges if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Cream of Tartar: This can be left out of the recipe, but I like the flavor it lends to the cookie. If you don't have it on hand, leave it out.
Buttercream: This buttercream recipe makes enough to lightly frost a two layer cake or lightly frost all of your sugar cookies. If you want to pipe extra decorations or borders, you will want to make 1.5 times the recipe or double it.
Almond Extract: I love the added flavor almond extract gives to the buttercream and the cookies. It's one of the "secret" ingredients that take these cookies to "best-ever" status. If you don't like the flavor, you can leave it out.
Heavy Cream: Heavy cream gives the buttercream its creamy and luscious texture. If you don't have it on hand you can substitute milk. Be careful not to pour too much milk because it will thin the frosting quicker than heavy cream.