The BEST Roll-Out Sugar Cookie Recipe Ever
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What makes this the best sugar cookie recipe ever?
I used this recipe in my bakery for 9 years, and if I had a dollar for every person who told me that they never liked sugar cookies until they tried mine, I would be rolling in dough, not rolling out dough.
These cookies require no chilling (unless your butter is too soft when you start), are not too sweet, and are the perfect softness, with just a little caramelization on the edges for flavour. They have a delightful vanilla flavour from the use of vanilla bean paste or seeds, and they spread very little so they keep the shape of whatever cutter you use.
This recipe is also very simple to make! I’ll go over some tips and trick for making, rolling, cutting, baking, and storage, then you can find the full recipe at the bottom of this post!
This recipe is the first step to making awesome/adorable/amazing cookies like these:
Tips & Tricks for making & rolling the dough:
First, your butter should be at room temperature. If it’s really warm where you are, you might need to put your butter in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before starting. If your butter is too warm, your cookie dough is going to be hard to work with.
If you make the dough and it turns out soft and sticky, don’t fret! Place the dough in the fridge for about 15 minutes at a time until it is easier to work with.
This recipe calls for vanilla bean paste, but you can replace the vanilla bean paste with the seeds from the inside of 1 vanilla bean. You can easily find both vanilla paste and vanilla beans online. If you are purchasing vanilla beans for baking, I would recommend purchasing grade A vanilla beans like the ones I have linked, so they are soft and easy to cut open the get the seeds out. Grade B or lower might be hard or brittle and difficult to cut open.
The dough itself is pretty straightforward to make, just follow the recipe below! As always, make sure your butter and eggs are at room temperature before starting.
Now, for rolling!
I like to roll my dough a little bit over 1/4” thick. You can really roll your dough however thick you want, you’ll just need to adjust baking times accordingly.
I like to use a rolling pin that is not tapered and has no handles, like this one. I find that it is much easier to get an even thickness with this type of rolling pin. If you are struggling with getting an even thickness, you can try a rolling pin like this one which has adjustable bands that help you get an even thickness. I personally don’t like the ones with bands because it limits how much dough you can roll out at once, but if it helps you, I say go for it!
Here’s my process for rolling out my dough:
I would probably roll out this whole recipe of dough at once, but you might want to start with half or 1/3 until you get the hang of it!
So, first sprinkle flour on your work surface, then take a chunk of dough (however much you are comfortable with) and put it on your work surface and squish it into a fat rectangle-ish shape (it doesn’t have to perfect). Then pick it up, re-flour your work surface, put it down and lightly flour the top of your dough and start rolling. After a few swipes with your rolling pin, spin your dough 180 degrees (you should have enough flour down on your work surface to enable you to do this). Continue this process, sprinkling small amounts of flour under or on top of your dough as needed and continuing to turn your dough every few swipes to make sure it’s not sticking to your work surface until you have your dough at your desired thickness (I like mine just a little thicker than 1/4”).
Once it looks like a good thickness to you, run your hand over the surface of the whole piece of dough to feel if there’s any high or low spots, and even out the thickness with your rolling pin. It also helps to get down at eye level with your dough to check out the thickness.
Now, give the top of your dough a final sprinkle of flour (not too much!) and rub it in, and you are ready to cut out your cookies!
Pssst: If you’re looking for fun cookie cutters, I have a shop full of digital cookie cutter files that you can print yourself with a 3D printer! Check it out here!
Cutting out & baking your cookies
Cut out your cookies with any cookie cutters you like! Leave about an inch of space between each cookie. My cookies are usually about 3.5”-4” in size and I can usually fit about 12 on a standard size baking sheet.
If your dough is sticking to your cutter, dip your cutter in flour and dust a little more flour on top of your dough, that should help!
Bake your cookies at 375 F for 5-7 minutes. This time range is for cookies that are about 1/4” thick and about 3.5” wide. If your cookies are a different size, you’ll need to adjust the baking time accordingly. When placing your cookies on the tray, make sure you put all cookies of similar size on the same tray - don’t mix minis with bigger cookies because they will have different bake times.
When there are no wet spots on top of your cookies and the edges are just sliiiighly caramelized, they’re done! Pull them out of the oven.
This part is important if you are planning to decorate your cookies:
Use another baking tray that is the same size as the one you baked your cookies on (or slightly smaller) to lightly flatten your cookies as soon as they come out of the oven. This will ensure that you have a completely flat surface to decorate and will save you lots of heartache as you won’t have to watch your icing drip off of your cookie and ruin your beautiful design!
If you are not planning to elaborately decorate these or just planning to eat them plain, don’t worry about the post-oven squish!
Place your tray of cookies on a wire rack to cool. When they are completely cooled, you are ready to decorate!
Roll Out Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 380g (3 cups) All Purpose Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 215g (1 cup) Salted Butter (Room temperature)
- 210g (1 cup) Granulated Sugar
- 8g (1 2/3 tsp) Vanilla Paste or the seeds from 1 Vanilla Bean
- 2 Large Eggs (Room temperature)
Instructions
- Whisk together your flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
- Put your butter, sugar, and vanilla paste into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on medium speed with paddle attachment until all butter is incorporated into sugar and mixture is smooth.
- Crack your eggs into a pitcher or bowl
- While mixer is running on medium speed, add your eggs one at a time, waiting after each addition for your eggs to incorporate and stopping the mixer and scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Stop the mixer and dump your flour mixture into the bowl. Change speed to low and mix until flour is just incorporated. DO NOT OVERMIX.
- Remove bowl from mixer and finish mixing by hand to ensure that all ingredients are incorporated evenly (get down to the bottom of the bowl with your hands or a spatula or dump out dough and mix on counter)
- Roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface to approximately 1/4" thick and cut out desired shapes. Set aside your already rolled scraps as you go so you are not re-rolling the same dough over and over. Once you are out of new dough, you can re-roll the scraps 1-2 times. (See post above for tips on rolling & cutting your dough!)
- Bake at 375 F for 5-7 minutes, rotating your tray halfway through if your oven does not bake evenly. Note that this bake time is for cookies that are about 3.5"-4" in size. You will need to adjust the bake time for cookies that are smaller or larger than this.
- When the cookies come out of the oven, use a clean baking tray to flatten them gently so that they have a flat surface for decorating, then place tray on a rack to cool completely.
- You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer in an airtight container for several months.
