When I was little, we had two favorite babysitters. One had the patience of a saint and taught us to play fan tan and gin rummy. The other loved to bake. This simple recipe for buttery sugar cookies was her go to on the days before Christmas when she let us “help.”
We’d gleefully cut out the cookies and then cover them with nonpareils, dragees, and sparkling sugars, chasing any sugar pearls that rolled off the table and sneakily eating chocolate jimmies when the babysitter wasn’t looking.
Somehow, our messy doings would still yield plenty of lovely cookies to share. You can vary the result from more tender to crispy depending on the thickness of the dough you roll out, and how long you bake it. To get sparkling sugars to adhere, simply brush cookie tops with a little egg-white wash before sprinkling and baking. Or, pipe baked cookies with frosting and add a few dragees or sparkles then. Happy Holidays!
Classic Christmas Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- FOR COOKIES:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 Tbsp milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- FOR EGG-WHITE WASH
- 1 large egg white, 2 tsp water
- FOR VANILLA PIPING SUGAR
- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 Tbsp softened butter
- 2 Tbsp milk
Instructions
- MAKE COOKIE DOUGH: Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth, add sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla and beat again. Mix in dry ingredients. Turn dough onto a square of waxed paper or plastic wrap; flatten into a disk and chill for ½ hour.
- MAKE COOKIES: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough from fridge and roll out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut shapes out of dough and transfer to parchment-lined cookie sheets. If decorating with sprinkles, brush cookie tops with egg-white wash. Sprinkle with sugars. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes until just beginning to brown at cookie edges. Remove from oven and cool on cooling rack. If decorating with piping sugar, allow cookies to fully cool.
- MAKE VANILLA PIPING SUGAR: Whip piping sugar ingredients together. Place in piping bag. Decorate cookies.
2 Comments
Very similar to my mother’s Old-Fashioned Star Sugar Cookies recipe, circa 1955. But I don’t see where you add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Thank you for your recipes, writing and web site.
Hi! Take a look at the method again–you add the flour to the butter mixture near the end of step one. Good luck!
Very best,
Monica Kass Rogers, Lost Recipes Found