Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs | The Best Recipe for Making Heavenly & Delicious Sugar Cookie Cut Outs with No Stress (With Videos, Important Tips & FAQs)

Today, we offer you the best and perfect sugar cookie cut outs recipe and the most common one professional bakers use all the time. Whenever you make these cookies for someone, be sure to bring along several copies of the recipe — you will be asked for it, I promise!

All right, baking commences!

Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs – What Are They All About?

They are soft, chewy and hold their shape perfectly! Plus, an easy sugar cookie frosting that tastes great and hardens with a beautiful shine!

The Nutritional information of perfect sugar cookie cut outs (per serving) includes the following;

• Calories: 110kcal
• Fat: 5g
• Carbs: 15g
• Protein: 2g

So, What Are the Ingredients of a Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs?

• Butter: Use unsalted butter that's just soft enough to be pliable, but not warm enough to be greasy. Pressing your fingertip into the butter should leave a slight indentation, but should not be soft and mushy.
• Sugar: Simply spoon white granulated sugar into your measuring cup and level it off with the flat edge of a knife, spatula, or bench scraper.
• Eggs: Use cool or room temperature large eggs.
• Vanilla extract: For the best flavor, use real vanilla extract instead of imitation vanilla.
• Flour: Use all-purpose flour. To measure flour, fluff it up with a spoon in the bag or container, then use the spoon to scoop it into the measuring cup and level it off. Don't pack the flour into the measuring cup; the ingredient ratio will be off, and your cookies may turn out too dry and crumbly.
• Baking powder: Baking powder is a leavening agent and helps the cookie dough rise while baking.
• Salt: Use regular table salt for this Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs recipe.

The Tips and Techniques Required for Making Perfect Sugar Cookie Cuts Outs

• Cream the butter and sugar

The first thing you'll do is beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer (hand-held or stand mixer) until the mixture is light and fluffy. Depending on the mixer you use, this could take four to five minutes. Why do you cream butter and sugar in the first place? It's all about incorporating air into the mixture. The micro pockets of air you create by creaming cause the dough to rise as it bakes so your cookies will be light in texture instead of flat and dense. Cool (not cold) butter works best; butter that's too warm won't let you create the structure you need.

• Add eggs and vanilla

After the butter and sugar are creamed, add the eggs and vanilla. Many home cooks like to add eggs one at a time. You'll want the eggs and vanilla to be thoroughly mixed into the butter and sugar before adding the dry ingredients.

• Add flour, baking powder, and salt

Measure these dry ingredients into a separate bowl, whisk them together thoroughly, then turn your mixer to a lower speed and stir the flour mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. Be sure to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl a couple of times so there are no streaks of flour in the dough.

• Cover and chill the dough

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. This firms up the butter in the dough and helps prevent the cookies from spreading as they bake.

Making Perfect Sugar Cookie Cuts Outs

• Prep Time: 25mins
• Cook Time: 10mins
• Total Time: 35mins
• Recipe type: Dessert
• Servings: 40-50 cookies

Materials and Kitchen Utensils Needed: Cookie cutters, baking sheets, spatula, hand mixer, rolling pin, oven, bowls (large and small), teaspoons, kitchen table, baking rack, timer, fridge, Breville 12 Cup Food Processor, and parchment paper.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1¼ cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ teaspoons of vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon of almond extract
• 3 cups of flour
• 1½ teaspoons of baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• Colored sugars for decorating

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes while you turn on the oven, prep your baking sheets, and gather your cookie cutters. By the time you're ready to roll, the dough will be easier to handle. Dust your countertop and rolling pin with flour to prevent the dough from sticking.
2. Roll the dough into an even thickness, about ¼ to ½ inch. Dip the sharp edge of your cookie cutter into flour and cut out shapes. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving an inch or more of space between the cutouts. This space allows the dough to spread slightly and the hot oven air to circulate each cookie for even baking.

Baking Perfect Sugar Cookies Cut Outs

Good baking requires more than just popping something into the oven. For one thing, there's the temperature. Every oven heats differently. That's why we always recommend you use an oven thermometer to measure the real temperature before you start baking.

And then there are the oven hot spots. To make sure your cookies (or any baked goods) bake evenly, it’s a good idea to rotate your pan halfway through the baking time.

These sugar cookies take only six to eight minutes to bake. You want them to be slightly browned around the edges but still light in color overall. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely; they'll firm up as they cool.

Note: Lining your baking sheet with parchment paper allows you to slide the cookies, paper, and all, onto the rack so you don't have to touch the warm cookies and risk bending or breaking them if you tried to pry them off the sheet with a spatula.

This is especially important if you're baking sugar cookie cutouts with intricate shapes. After the cookies cool for about 10 minutes, you can slide them off the parchment paper themselves and reuse the paper for another batch of cookies. Be sure your baking sheet is completely cooled before loading it up again. You don't want to melt the cookies before they bake.

Directions

• Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least 1 hour (or overnight).
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Roll out dough to ¼ to ½ inch thickness. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.
• Bake in the preheated oven until cookies are lightly browned for 6-8 minutes. Carefully transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely before decorating.

Necessary Tips You Need to Know to Be able to Make Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs

• The butter must be at room temperature.

The butter is the base of flawless cut out cookies. If the butter is too cold, it will not combine properly, and if it is too warm or melted, the dough will be much too soft. The butter must be properly soft for this recipe or it may cause problems.

Let the butter remain on the counter for at least 2 hours. With this dish, avoid microwaving the butter. You should be able to easily push your finger into it and it should retain the form of the indentation. The butter should seem and feel soft, but should not be melted.

• While mixing, be sure to scrape down the basin often.

Make certain that the dough is properly and thoroughly mixed. With each ingredient addition, scrape the bowl many times while you combine the dough. Since little pockets of unmixed sugar and butter tend to hide, make sure the dough is fully combined!

• Roll the cookie dough into equal layers.

Rolling the dough uniformly is critical. If some places are thicker and other spots are thinner, this will impact bake time and then you wind up with a tray with some underdone cookies and some burned cookies. ACK!

The rolling dough requires firm control of the rolling pin. Bakers normally roll in a forward motion with minimal pressure. As they move the rolling pin back towards me, they still glide it over the dough, but with less effort. Going backward makes it more difficult to regulate the pressure.

You should also vary the direction in which you roll. If you simply roll the dough in one way, it will be far more likely to be uneven. It's easier for them to achieve neatly rolled-out dough by swapping sides periodically. 

This dough is really easy to deal with. It's not at all sticky or harsh. It's soft yet simple to roll out. A little flour on your surface and a rolling pin provide a beautiful roll.

Still Having Difficulties Rolling Out Cookie Dough Evenly?

Even when I'm diligent, it's difficult to obtain exactly uniform dough! I suggest researching the best rolling pin and how best to use it efficiently. It's the ideal approach for cutting out cookies. The pin is longer than typical, and the edges are notched to the proper 14" depth for deliciously thick biscuits.

How Thick Should You Roll the Dough, And How Should You Measure It?

Many people always loved a thick sugar cookie, so bakers stretch out the dough to 14-inch thickness. You may roll it thinner if you like, but if you intend on using royal icing, I prefer a thicker biscuit. That just makes things easier.

Thin cookies + flood royal icing = icing drops and droops over the edges.

It's simple to determine the thickness of the dough (skip if you're using the best rolling pin). I prefer to have a clear ruler in my baking cupboard to measure the thickness of the dough. This one appeals to me since it has no edge meaning that you can measure directly from the surface.

Usually, rulers include a little additional space before the measurement begins, but any ruler will suffice! Just be sure to account for any additional space on your ruler.

• Do not overbake.

My last cookie-baking trick is to not overbake them. To guarantee that these cookies are completely soft, bake them until the edges begin to become a light golden brown hue.

What Causes Sugar Cookie Cut Outs to Spread?

The chief causes of cookie spread are an overheated oven and an incorrect butter-to-flour ratio. Since this recipe heats at a low and consistent 325 degrees, the dough is not bombarded with intense heat, causing a fast breakdown.

There is plenty of butter in this recipe, but there is also enough flour to keep the fat from the butter together. If your cookies are spreading, make sure the oven temperature is accurate and the flour was measured correctly (leveled and spooned in the measuring cup).

Recipe Notes

• One key to making cookies that hold their shape is to make sure your butter is properly at room temp before mixing. If it’s too cold it won’t mix well and if it’s too warm or melted, you’ll end up with a dough that’s way too soft. You should leave the butter to sit at room temp for at least 2 hours. You should be able to press into it with your finger easily and it should hold the shape of the indentation.
• For this recipe, the dough only needs to chill for about 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator since it is already rolled out. If you would rather chill the dough first before rolling, you'll want to increase the chill time to about an hour.
• Using parchment paper is a great tip for rolling the dough because it eliminates the need to add extra flour to keep it from sticking.
• Your perfect sugar cut outs were done baking in 9 minutes but check yours closely. You want them to be just barely set and not yet browned. They'll seem slightly undercooked right out of the oven but will firm up nicely once cooled. 9 minutes seemed to be the sweet spot for most bakers!
• Once the cookies come out of the oven, only let them stay on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, or just until you're able to carefully slide a spatula underneath the cookies without breaking them to transfer them to a cooling rack. Letting the cookies stay on the baking sheet any longer will dry them out, making them less soft and tender.

How to Decorate Perfect Sugar Cookies Cut Outs

The main thing to remember is to let the cookies cool completely before applying cookie icing or frosting so the heat from the cookies doesn't melt them off.

How to Store Perfect Sugar Cookies Cut Outs

Sugar cookies can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about three days before they start losing their freshness. If you've decorated your cookies with royal icing, which dries hard to the touch, you can stack the cookies.

Cookies decorated with soft frosting should be stored in single layers, or with parchment paper or waxed paper between the layers if you have to stack them. You can freeze sugar cookies in airtight freezer bags for up to three months.

• Baked cookies: Bare, baked cookies can be stacked and frozen in a zip-lock freezer bag. Thaw on the counter for at least 1 hour before use.
• Raw Dough: Freeze the raw dough in a large ball, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. Thaw in the fridge 24 hours before use, then leave on the counter until it comes up to room temperature and the dough is pliable again.

This Recipe for Cut Out Sugar Cookies Requires No Chilling

For many bakers, having a no-chill recipe is essential. It's uncommon to find must chill' recipes on a baker's site. It is not necessary to cool these sugar cookie cut outs before baking them.

But, if the temperature is 98 degrees and the humidity is 90%, you may want to try chilling your dough in the refrigerator for a bit. When exposed to excessive heat and humidity, the butter will respond in the only manner that butter knows how (melting into a puddle and causing your dough to spread!). Some days are just not conducive to baking. The recipe can only do so much magic!

All right! That is it for ‘perfect sugar cookie cut outs’. I hope you have a great time baking your own batch of perfect sugar cookie cut outs.

You can check the FAQs section below to know more about ‘perfect sugar cookie cut outs ', and if you have any comments, drop them in our comment section below.

Odudu Abasi

I Am odudu abasi a top-notch and experienced freelance writer, virtual assistant, graphics designer and a computer techie who is adept in content writing, copywriting, article writing, academic writing, journal writing, blog posts, seminar presentations, SEO contents, proofreading, plagiarism/AI checking, editing webpage contents/write-ups and WordPress management.

My work mantra is: “I can, and I will”

Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Outs

Today, we offer you the best and perfect sugar cookie cut outs recipe and the most common one professional bakers use all the time. Whenever you make these cookies for someone, be sure to bring along several copies of the recipe — you will be asked for it, I promise!

Type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keywords: Perfect sugar cookie cut outs

Recipe Yield: 40-50 cookies

Calories: 110kcal

Preparation Time: 25M

Cooking Time: 10M

Total Time: 35M

Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1¼ cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ teaspoons of vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon of almond extract
• 3 cups of flour
• 1½ teaspoons of baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• Colored sugars for decorating

Recipe Instructions:

• Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least 1 hour (or overnight).

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

• Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Roll out dough to ¼ to ½ inch thickness. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.

• Bake in the preheated oven until cookies are lightly browned for 6-8 minutes. Carefully transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely before decorating.

Editor's Rating:
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