What is the trick to rolling out sugar cookie dough?

Rather than roll dough on a floured surface, roll it between sheets of non-stick parchment or waxed paper . Adding extra flour to the dough while rolling can make cookies tough. And cutout cookies release easily from paper when you move them to the baking sheet, preserving their shape.

Why are my rolled sugar cookies spreading?

Butter. Too much butter in your cookie dough can cause spreading while baking as the dough doesn't have enough binding ingredients and the fats simply will melt and spread.

How thick should sugar cookie dough be rolled out to?

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the sugar cookie dough to ¼-inch thick . Cut out shapes as desired, transfer to prepared baking sheets, and bake cookies until set but still pale, 10 to 12 minutes. Cook for 5 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely before decorating.

Why is my sugar cookie dough falling apart when rolling?

To avoid this, try using as little flour as possible while preparing to roll your dough . Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

How long should sugar cookie dough sit out before rolling?

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes ).

Should you chill sugar cookie dough before rolling?

→ Follow this tip: Chill sugar cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 15 minutes . The dough will be so much easier to work with! It will roll out nicely, and if you're making cut-outs, chilled dough will help you get clean, sharp edges.

What is the secret to thick cookies?

Chill Your Cookie Dough Chilling your cookie dough for at least 24 hours or up to 72 hours does magical things to your cookies. Think of this like a “marinating” period. Not only will the flavors intensify, but the texture will also improve, so your cookies will bake up nice and thick and chewy.

What makes cookies fluffy and not flat?

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

Why poke holes in sugar cookies?

The holes trick There's also a new technique going around when preventing craters in a second layer of icing : poke holes in the base flood (under the area you'll cover with a second layer of icing). You can even do this when the first layer flood has completely dried!

How long should I chill sugar cookie dough?

Bake cookies on parchment paper: Sometimes greasing a baking sheet can cause sugar cookies to spread. Instead, use parchment paper to prevent sticking and help the cookies keep their shape. Don't let the dough get warm. Notice the dough needs to be chilled for at least 2 hours .

What happens if too much butter is in cookies?

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

Why don t my sugar cookies keep their shape?

Mixing Butter & Sugar If your butter is under mixed, it won't have the air pockets to hold it's shape . If it's over-mixed, the air pockets decrease in size and are unable to hold their shape in the oven—causing your cookies to spread. It's best to cream butter and sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe (2024)

When I was growing up, I always enjoyed making sugar cookies at Christmas time. Even at a very young age I would spend half an hour carefully decorating a cookie, adding one sprinkle at a time. My sisters would have a whole plate of cookies decorated in the time I would decorate one or two, but mine were little works of art. My mom never quite understood my need to seek perfection (especially on a cookie!), but she knewit was simply a part of who I was. Well, some things never change… I’m quite a few years older now, and a mother myself, butI still find such enjoyment inspending the late hours of the day hunched over a tray of cookies, adding sprinkles with the greatest of care.

One of the nice things about making sugar cookies is that they can be as simple or as detailed as you care to make them. Making sugar cookies with children can be a fun and special activity.Or taking the time todecorate sugar cookies with extra care can produce some really beautiful results, perfect for special gifts. Whatever the end goal, starting with a reliable recipe, and handling the dough with a bit of care will ensure delicious results every time.

Here is the recipe I use, and have made hundreds of times. Most recipes for sugar cookies are extremely similar to this. Some recipes call for almond extract or lemon zest in place of the vanilla extract. I’m sure those variations would produce delicious results as well.

Note (November 2017) – I’ve written an updated post as well as a printable version of this recipe in my post titled –>Perfect Sugar Cookie Recipe.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon bakingpowder
1 cup (2sticks)unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1large egg
1 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract

Parchment paper

Directions:

-In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder and set aside.

Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. You’ll notice the sticks I have on either side of the dough. These are paint stir sticks (available for free from the paint department of any hardware store). There is a product on the market called Perfection sticks, which are sticks that usually come in a set of a couple different thicknesses. They are designed to help you roll out the dough in a nice even thickness. Since I don’t own Perfection sticks, I just glued two paint stir sticks together, which makesabout the perfect thickness for sugar cookies. (So you need 4 sticks total, since you need a double thick stick for each side of your dough.) If I want the dough a bit thinner, I just roll out the dough to the thickness of the sticks, then remove the sticks and roll just a bit thinner.

Place a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough. This helps you roll out the dough without adding additional flour (adding too much flour can make the dough a bit tough,and cancreate little pockets of flour in the dough that cause bumps to form on your cookies during baking, making it more difficult to decorate later).

Roll out the dough to about 1/3 of an inch thick.

Cut the dough with your choice of cookie cutters. Try to make the best use of the dough you’ve rolled out. Every time you re-roll the dough you add a bit more flour, and can create the flour pockets I mentioned that can cause bumps to form in the cookies while baking.

Place cookie shapes on a prepared baking sheet. I bake my cookies on heavy weight metal baking sheets, topped withSilpat brand silicone liners. Silpatliners are a bit of an investment, since you’ll probably want to have two (I have four) but they are such a great quality product and last a lifetime.
Make sure to only put cookies of similar size on each bake sheet. If you try to bake smaller cookies with larger ones the small ones will be over done before the large ones are baked.

Place entire baking sheet (with cookies on it) in the freezer or refrigeratorfor about 3-5 minutes.Chilling the cookies this way will helpensure they keep their shapewhile baking.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes depending on the size of the cookie. Bake until they are just barely beginning to take on a golden tone. They will continue to bake as long as then are on the pan, so don’t let then get too brown. Cool for just a minute or so on the pan, then carefully remove cookies from the baking sheet and place on a cooling rack.

This recipe yields about 30, 2 1/2 inch cookies or 16, 3 1/2 inch cookies.

Once cooled, the cookies can be decorated with frosting, royal icing or rolled fondant.

To get you started on the decorating, here are a coupleposts,
Basic cookie decorating tutorial(the cookies in this post are mini cookies used as cupcake toppers, but the information can be used for any cookies).
How to make pretty Luaucookies(the same techniques could be used for cookies for anyoccasion).

I also highly recommend the book Cookie Craft. This is the best and most complete book I’vefound on decorating cookies. This book has gorgeous photos for inspiration, but also has every bit of information you need, including directions and recipes. Despite thethousands of cookies I’ve made over the years, I still come back to this book for ideas or to refresh my memory on a particular technique.

And once your cookies are decorated, take a look at my post HERE on pretty packaging for your cookies

Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the trick to rolling out sugar cookie dough? ›

What happens if too much butter is in cookies? ›