What is Christmas without some good ole fashioned baking?? So friends… I need to share with you the best Sugar Cookie Recipe that there ever was. I’ve been making this recipe with my mom & sister for.. well.. forever!! And I don’t think we’ve ever had a bad batch. It’s easy & delicious.. what more could you want at Christmas time? So im sharing the precious recipe with all of you & how I decorate them because I think you’re going to love them too!! Especially if you are looking for some traditions to start with your own family 🙂 Enjoy!!

Recipe

Ingredients

-3 cups All Purpose Flour

-1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 cup butter, softened

-1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

-3 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla

-1/2 tsp almond extract (I use 1 tbsp because I just looove this flavour!!)

-Decorations: Coloured sugar for sprinkles OR Royal Icing supplies: icing sugar, milk & vanilla & food colouring.

Directions

  1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir well to blend.
  2. Cream butter and sugar together with your electric mixer until light and fluffy.
  3. Beat in eggs, vanilla and almond extract.
  4. Stir flour mixture into creamed mixture. Mix well. Form dough into two balls. Wrap each in plastic wrap and chill for about 3 hours for easy handling.
  5. Roll dough out (after 3 hours chilling), one ball at a time onto a floured surface (be generous!) to a 1/4″ thickness. Cut into desired shapes using your festive cookie cutters.
  6. If you chose to decorate your cookies, you have two options! First you can decorate before baking using coloured sugar. Or you can bake your cookies and then ice them with Royal Icing.
  7. Bake at 375F for 8-10 minutes or until the edges turn a light golden brown. Remove from tray once completed and onto drying rack to completely cool (especially before you ice them!)
  8. While your cookies are cooling, prepare your Royal Icing: 1 cup of icing sugar, 2 tbsp of milk, 1 tbsp of vanilla. Whisk until combined to your desired thickness. For these cookies in particular, make sure your icing is more thick then thin for easy handling/drying. (I doubled this recipe for my cookies!)
  9. Place different food colourings into separate dishes and add spoonfuls of icing and mix. Place icing into piping tubes. *If you have no piping tubes at home, you can use ziplock bags with a small hole cut in the end! (Make sure all air is removed from bag before sealing!)
  10. Start piping your cookies using my technique below. Ice the edges of your cookies with your desired colour. Let dry for about 5-8 minutes. Then fill in the rest of the space with icing. This will act as a ‘barrier’ to your icing preventing mass drippings off the sides of your cookies. This may still happen. Use a toothpick to fill in any air bubbles along the way. Completely let dry before you add any other embellishments ontop of this layer!
  11. Makes up to 40-50 cookies. Will stay fresh in a air tight container for up to 2 weeks! Enjoy!!

So my decorating didnt turn out as pretty as I had in my head… my hats are off to those that do this professionally!! Not an easy task.. but the Royal Icing sure makes a tasty treat ontop of those already delicious cookies!! So get that apron out and get to baking my friend!! See you over on social to chat more about your family baking traditions!!

Talk soon,

Sam xx