The Best Cut Out Sugar Cookie Recipe | Wilton (2024)

FAQs

What is the trick to cut-out cookies? ›

Chilling the dough a second time before removing the cut-out cookies from the bottom layer of parchment paper keeps the shapes in tact while they are moved to the cookie sheet. Baking chilled cookie-dough on parchment paper is what keeps the cookies from spreading in the oven so they hold their shape.

Chill the cookie dough.

Chilling cookie dough helps prevent spreading. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. You'll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies. Whenever I make cookies, I plan ahead and chill the cookie dough overnight.

Why are my cookies dry? The most common reason cookies are dry is too much flour. Over-measuring flour is a very common reason for most any baking recipe to fail. If you scoop your measuring cup down into the flour container to measure, then odds are you're using too much.

Choose the Right Fat (Preferably Butter)

Butter is the ideal fat for cookies because it adds the best flavor. However, stick margarine (with at least 80% fat content) and shortening will also yield good results.

The Best Way to Store Sugar Cookies

Once the cut-out cookies have cooled completely, place them into an airtight container. If iced, store in the refrigerator for 4-5 days. If uniced, store at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Essentially, the Maillard reaction is the process of browning and it occurs every time you heat a mixture of proteins, amino acids and sugars in food molecules. Think about roasting marshmallows, baking bread, searing a steak, roasting a turkey, or even roasting coffee.

Flour is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising.

Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.

No chill cut out sugar cookies

Using cold butter and working fast, the dough will still be cold enough to maintain it's shape when baking right away. I do recommend that you chill the dough between baking the batches – either in a disc or pre-cut shapes.

What does cream of tartar do in cookies? ›

Cream of tartar stabilizes the tiny bubbles in the egg whites, by precluding the egg proteins from sticking together. It thus speeds up the egg white whipping process and contributes to a stable, billowy, glossy meringue, perfect for cookies, topping pies, and folding into cake.

Should I grease my cookie sheets? Unless the recipe tells you to grease the cookie sheet, resist the impulse. The extra grease causes cookie dough (which already contains a lot of fat) to spread. If you're concerned about cookies sticking, line the cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone non-stick mat.

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).

Preserve the shape of thin cookies

Cut thin cookies on a sheet of parchment, leaving more space between them than usual. Then peel off the dough scraps in between the cookies, leaving the cookies right on the parchment. Pick up the parchment with cookies and place it right onto the baking sheet, then pop into the oven.

Ingredients You Will Need

Unsalted Butter: I always stick with unsalted butter because the amount of salt in salted butter can vary quite a bit between different brands. By using unsalted butter, you control the amount of salt in your cookies.

Benefits of Butter

This is what gives you a cookie with just the right amount of crispness and richness. It's packed full of natural flavor (as opposed to shortening, which has no flavor)--which is key for things like sugar cookies and shortbread.

If you are planning to eat the cookies within a few days, place them in an airtight container or zip-top plastic bag. You can also place a slice of sandwich bread inside the container, which will absorb excess moisture and help keep the cookies soft.

To extend the shelf life of products, many bakers use specially formulated enzymes for preservation. These naturally occurring protein compounds can keep baked goods soft while preventing crumbling and staling.

Our recipe for baking the perfect sugar cookie is below. To make sure cookies bake evenly every time, remember to line your pan with parchment paper.

And remember to bake some bread or cookies. The aroma will make the house more appealing. Those are just a few tricks of the trade local Realtors are using to make houses stand out in today's home buying market.

What is the one big rule in baking? ›

1. Read the Recipe (Yes, Really) This one may seem obvious, but nine times out of 10, the reason that a dish goes wrong is that the cook hasn't fully read the recipe before starting.

Cakes and cookies often require softened butter (65 to 67 degrees) and room-temperature eggs and milk. Softened butter creams easily, and room-temperature eggs and milk are more easily incorporated than cold.

Add more complex proteins, like malted milk powder and brown butter. Caramelizing the sugar beforehand brings bright notes to your cookies, but you can further expand your dessert's flavor profile by playing with proteins.

Baking with fats creates a rich tasting experience and more flavor overall. Another plus: cakes and cookies will be moister when baking with fat. Overall, baked goods made with fat taste better, that's a fact 😊.

You Didn't Chill Your Dough

We get that you're anxious, but if you want fluffy cookies, you seriously need to chill… the dough. Why? Because of that whole issue with butter melting prematurely. Refrigerate your batter for at least 10 minutes before scooping it onto a baking sheet.

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.

Add extracts

A teaspoon or two of extracts will noticeably boost flavor when blended into your sugar cookie mix. Vanilla is the obvious choice. For a more intriguing flavor, add both vanilla and almond extracts. Rum, maple and anise are other delicious varieties to consider.

Chilling the dough is a key step in making sugar cookies, especially when you're making cut-outs. Even if you're tight on time, make sure to get the dough in the fridge, or even the freezer, even if it's only for a little while. Skip this step, and the dough will be sticky, and much harder to work with.

The short answer is that resting your cookie dough will almost always yield better results. Chilling your cookie dough in the fridge after mixing allows the flour to hydrate and gives all the ingredients time to come together, resulting in a more nuanced, well-rounded flavor profile.

Are sugar cookies supposed to be soft when they come out of the oven? ›

Recipes for sugar cookie cutouts often call for baking until the edges are firm or set. If that's the case with your recipe, your sugar cookies should be set (not brown) and no longer appear soft and melty.

However, decorated sugar cookies can last 7 days in the fridge, but are best enjoyed within the first 3 days so you don't risk the decorations running and bleeding.

This subtle hydration makes the dough less wet, concentrating the flavors. The result is cookies with a nice even bake and lovely golden brown color. And if you use brown butter in your cookie recipes, chilling the dough overnight allows the flavors to develop so you get a richer, more decadent cookie.

Making your cupcakes and cookies a uniform size is a matter of scooping out the mixture equally before baking.

Mix one part cream of tartar with four parts white vinegar to create a paste that will help you polish stainless steel, aluminum, and silver appliances. Rust remover. Mix with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and let sit on rusty areas for an hour.

When water is added to a combination of cream of tartar and baking soda, the cream of tartar reacts with the baking soda to produce a gas that you see as bubbles. This reaction is very similar to a more familiar acid, namely vinegar (acetic acid), which reacts with baking soda to form bubbles.

The most common reason that cookies are tough is that the cookie dough was mixed too much. When flour is mixed into the dough, gluten begins to form. Gluten helps hold baked goods together, but too much gluten can lead to tough cookies.

The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4"--that way, they'll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.

Rimmed baking sheets are the most versatile because they can be used for baking cookies as well as roasting vegetables or meats; their spill-proof sides keep everything inside the pan. But rimless baking sheets have their merits, too. They're made for easily sliding cookies onto a cooling rack.

Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn't enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.

Can you use parchment paper to roll out dough? ›

Rolling out using baking paper means the dough will have an even thickness and won't stick to the table or baking dish. If you cut a ready sheet of paper the same size as the dish or oven tray, you can transfer the dough and the paper directly to the dish after rolling out.

Apply pressure evenly to the rolling pin and chill the dough if it becomes too soft and sticky. Use two pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper to make rolling easier.

Refrigerating cookie dough: Sugar cookie dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up 5 days before use. Chilling the dough can help control the spread of your cookies during baking and, depending on how long you refrigerate the dough, may lead to a more concentrated flavor and a crisper cookie post-baking.

Once I decorate the cookies (either the day they are baked or a couple days later), the cookies need to be left out over night to fully dry before packaging. They will not get stale from being left out one day.

Chilling cookie dough controls spread.

Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.

How Do I Get More Cookie Run: Kingdom Cookie Cutters? You can get cookie cutters by completing quests in the game's campaign mode. Not every level will give you one as a reward, but there are some quests where a free cookie cutter will land in your inventory as you progress.

Do you cut cookies before or after baking? Cut your cookie dough before baking it. Once the cookies are baked, it'll be more difficult to get a clean cut.

Magic Cookie Cutters can be purchased from here for 400 Medals. Another place to look is the Rainbow Shell Gallery located within Touc's Trade Harbor. Like the Medal Shop, the inventory is always revolving on a schedule, but Cookie Cutters do appear in the shop on occassion for players with enough Rainbow Shells.

The maximum level for every cookie type (Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary) is 15.

→ 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.

How thick should dough be rolled for cut out cookies? ›

The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4"--that way, they'll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.

How Long to Refrigerate Cookie Dough. 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.

Unless a recipe tells you otherwise, you should always store sugar cookies at room temperature to make sure that they taste as good on day three as they did on day one. Keep them in a cool, dry area of your kitchen; any additional humidity may change their texture, particularly with frosted sugar cookies.

Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they're in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.

How to Tell When Sugar Cookies Are Done. Recipes for sugar cookie cutouts often call for baking until the edges are firm or set. If that's the case with your recipe, your sugar cookies should be set (not brown) and no longer appear soft and melty.

So the less you work the dough, the softer the cookie. How: Add a teaspoon or two of cornstarch (up to a tablespoon if you want!) into your dry ingredients. Why This Works: Cornstarch binds with the liquids in your dough, so this makes your cookies spread less. It will also help them be soft and tender!

You Didn't Chill Your Dough

We get that you're anxious, but if you want fluffy cookies, you seriously need to chill… the dough. Why? Because of that whole issue with butter melting prematurely. Refrigerate your batter for at least 10 minutes before scooping it onto a baking sheet.