Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies are the best! Soft centers, crispy edges and no chilling needed for this classic sugar cookie recipe! These work with any cookie cutters and can be iced or eaten plain.
My Gram’s Cut Out Sugar Cookies are one of my all time favorite treats. We’ve made them for every holiday for as long as I can remember and they truly are the best cookie.
They are soft in the center and crispy on the outside with a rich buttery flavor that balances perfectly with the sweetness of the cookie and the sugar on top!
If you’re looking for an easy sugar cookie to make this holiday season (or just because!) – look no further. You will love these!
Why these are the best sugar cookies?
I’m biased, but I think these are the best sugar cookies. I’ve eaten them for every holiday since I was a kid. Here are a few reasons why we love them!
- Buttery and sweet
- Soft in the center and crispy on the edges
- Easy to make. You only need 7 ingredients
- Customizable – Use whatever cookie cutters or sprinkles you like. These cookies are great for any occasion.
- Perfect for royal icing, classic icing, or sprinkles!
- Last for weeks/freeze well
- No chill (who wants to wait for cookies?!)
Ingredients for Cut out Sugar Cookies:
To make these cut out sugar cookies you will only need 7 basic ingredients.
- sugar – We use granulated white sugar. We can’t recommend any substitutes.
- softened salted butter – We only bake with salted butter. NEVER margarine! Leave the butter out for 1-2 hours before baking OR pop it in the microwave in 10 second increments. DON’T melt your butter! It should be bendy and pliable, not hard.
- an egg
- milk – We have made this recipe with heavy cream, regular milk, and lactose free milk – all work!
- vanilla extract -shhhh, don’t tell baking purists.. you can use imitation 😉 Vanilla extract is so expensive!
- all purpose flour
- baking powder-make sure your baking powder is fresh!
Substitutions
We usually love to provide you with substitutions for our recipes -but sadly can’t provide many substitutions for this recipe. It only has 7 ingredients and is really intended to be made as is!
Cookie Cutters: You can use this recipe with any cookie cutters you like. We use both big and small ones, and this recipe is great for any holiday.
Food Coloring: You could add a few drops of food coloring to this dough to dye it. This is the food coloring we like.
Sprinkles: Use any sprinkles you like on these cookies!
Butter: We always use salted butter when baking. You can sub unsalted butter but it won’t be as tasty.
Doubling: This recipe can easily be doubled, but it makes 6 dozen as is – so that’s a lot of cookies if you’re doubling it!
Gluten Free: We haven’t tried making these gluten free, but I think it might work with 1:1 flour. If you try it, let us know. You can also try these Almond Flour Sugar Cookies for a gluten/grain free option or Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies for a gluten free version!
Butter/Sugar – We can’t offer substitutions for butter or sugar in this recipe. I don’t recommend swapping with any ingredients.
How do you make sugar cookies from scratch?
- In a bowl, cream softened butter & sugar.
- Add egg, milk, and vanilla extract.
- Stir in flour and baking powder until combined.
If your dough is sticky: You probably over softened your butter. Put your dough in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes-1 hour and it will be fine to roll out!
Roll the dough to 1/6 inch thickness. It’s super easy to control the thickness of your dough with this rolling pin. You can roll the cookies thicker for softer cookies or thinner for crispier cookies.
Use your favorite cut out shapes and place them on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
Add sprinkles before baking: If you’re using sprinkles or colored sugar, add it before you bake.
Gram’s Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
Bake for 5-8 minutes until lightly browned on the edges
Once you roll the dough/put your cookies on the sheet – gather your scraps, form them into a ball, and re roll.
Cool the cookies on a sheet for 3-4 minutes until they’re firm, then move to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
Sugar Cookie Toppings:
Years ago my gram would ice every single cookie by hand. She would outline the cookies perfectly, using a different colored icing for each cookie. It would take hours. I’m not as skilled as her so now we just use colored sugar!
- Colored Sugar – We used classic colored sugar on these cookies
- Sprinkles – You can use regular sprinkles on these cookies
- Royal Icing- We don’t use royal icing but you can! Here’s a link to a royal icing recipe.
- Powdered Sugar Icing: My Gram mixes powdered sugar and milk until it’s a thick consistency. You can dye it with food coloring and use a piping bag (or ziploc bag) to ice. 1 cup of powdered sugar to 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Add more milk until it’s thick but only add a TINY bit because it gets thin quickly!
Cut Out Cookie FAQ:
Your cookies can be spreading for a number of reasons. Here are some tips to prevent cookies from spreading: Put cookies on a COOL baking sheet, never put them on a hot baking sheet. Use parchment paper instead of a greased baking sheet. Sometimes the grease on the sheet can make them spread more! Chill your dough- You can put your dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour before rolling to prevent your cookies from spreading.
Drop cookies are made by dropping the dough into balls on a baking sheet. Cut out cookies are made by rolling the dough thin and using cookie cutters. Drop cookies are typically thicker and have add ins while cut out cookies are thin and plain.
No. Cut your cookies out before baking.
This is likely because of your dough. Scroll up and read our tips for preventing your cookies from spreading!
Most sugar cookies last up to 2 weeks but are most fresh if eaten within a week. See below for storing tips.
Sugar Cookie Tools:
There are a few tools that will help you to make the best sugar cookies ever!
Rolling Pin I HIGHLY recommend this rolling pin. It has little wheels on the side that allow you to control the thickness of the dough. No guessing or rolling some cookies out too thin or too thick.
Christmas Cookie Cutters – Here’s a link to our favorite Christmas cookie cutters but you can use any cookie cutters for this recipe!
Parchment Paper– I always bake cookies on parchment paper, while my gram uses greased cookie sheets. It’s up to you!
Colored Sugar– Any sprinkles or colored sugar will work with these cookies. Here’s a link to our favorite.
Piping Bag (only for icing) If you want to ice the edges of these cookies you can use a piping bag or even a plastic ziploc bag with the corner cut very small.
Food Coloring – This recipe doesn’t require food coloring but you can dye the dough if you’d like!
Tips for the best cut out cookies:
After making these cookies many times, we have a few tips to ensure you get the best cut out sugar cookies!
Gram’s Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
Watch when baking! These go from perfectly golden brown to burnt quickly!
Measure your ingredients correctly – It is super important to measure your ingredients correctly, specifically the flour! Check out this tutorial on how to measure flour correctly.
Use flour when rolling out the dough. Make sure to flour your work surface and the top of the dough/rolling pin when rolling out the cookie dough. Otherwise, the dough will stick/be difficult to transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet
Enjoy with a mug of warm Hot Chocolate!
Storing Cut Out Cookies:
We recommend storing these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
How long can you keep cut out sugar cookies? Up to 2 weeks if stored correctly. These cookies stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (if you don’t eat them all before then!)
Can you freeze cut out sugar cookies? Yes, you can! Freeze in an airtight container or ziploc bag for up to 3 months for maximum freshness. We recommend freezing without frosting. Colored sugar can bleed into the cookies when frozen – but it won’t affect the taste!
Dough: The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours. Leave the dough at room temp for an hour before rolling the dough. I have not tried freezing the dough.
You can make these cookies for any holiday – not just Christmas! Here they are with food coloring added and easter cut outs
Other delicious Christmas cookie recipes:
These are some of our favorite Christmas Cookie recipes! You can check out our Healthy Christmas Recipes for other ideas!
Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter softened (2 sticks)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 and prepare a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
- In stand mixer cream softened butter & sugar.
- Add egg, milk and vanilla extract. Mix until combined.
- Stir in flour and baking powder until combined.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough to ¼ – ⅙ inch thickness. We recommend this rolling pin for perfectly rolled cookies.
- Use your favorite cut out shapes to cut out the cookies. Use a thin metal spatula to transfer cookies to a greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles if you like.
- Bake for 5-8 minutes until browned on edges
- Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
- Cool the cookies on a sheet for 3-4 minutes until they’re firm, then move to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
- Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks for freshness!
- Note: Once you roll the dough/put your cookies on the sheet – gather your scraps, form into a ball and re roll. Don’t waste!
Bella says
I have been looking for a clean cut out cookie recipe featuring milk as my grandmother used to make them that way. Do you think I could use organic shortening instead of butter and Bobs 1-1 gluten free flour here? Also, any chance of using monkfruit for the sugar- sadly, I am highly sensitive to white sugar these days. Last, should I use an egg wash before sprinkling with colored sugar? I can’t wait to make these this week in shapes for Easter.
The Clean Eating Couple says
Hi! I have never made these with shortening, but I don’t think it would come out good. These cookies have a very buttery taste- and I think using shortening would ruin that. I personally have not made these using 1:1 gluten free flour, but others have with success. I have not used monk fruit in place of the sugar – but baking is so scientific, I really don’t know how that would work either. These cookies aren’t overly sweet to begin with, so I’d be afraid to substitute with monk fruit. do NOT use an egg was before sprinkling with colored sugar – your cookies will have a layer of scrambled eggs on top and that not be good! I’m sorry that I couldn’t be more help – but this is a family recipe. We always make it just as is.
ZC says
These were absolutely delicious. I used almond milk and they came out perfect! ❤️
Judi D says
Great recipe this is very similar to my mothers with the exception of chilling dough for 2 hours 🙄
Thanks for sharing made Christmas baking fast and more importantly FUN!😄
Ann says
These are very easy to make and hold their shape well. I used almond flavoring rather than the vanilla, but that’s just what I like. I will definitely make these again.
Emily says
These were perfect! Made one batch with regular Ap flour and one batch with gluten free flour and they both came out great. Addictive and can’t stop eating them !!
Gramma D says
Kids are having a blast making and taste testing these yummy cookies.
Sophie says
Hey!!! I just noticed that you in this recipe you measure your flour by spooning and levelling (aka measuring “correctly”) do you do that in all of your recipes? I’m about to make your banana muffins and I just want to make sure I’m putting the right amount of flour in.
The Clean Eating Couple says
Yes. That’s how you should always measure flour!
Cora says
I made this recipe with gluten free flour and the cookies turned out perfectly! My kids absolutely loved them. Very easy to cut out and they held the shape nicely.
Denise says
Delicious 😋
I made bigger ones, which yielded about 45.
Only one bad thing…. they are addicting!!!!
Joni says
I’ve never rolled out dough, cookie or pie crust. I chose this recipe because everyone said how easy it was. My first roll out wasn’t good so I used a smaller piece of dough. Turned out great. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of it and move on to larger pieces. It will be alot quicker.
The Clean Eating Couple says
make sure you are lightly flouring the surface you’re rolling out on, the rolling pin & the top of your cookie dough. Hope this helps!
Shara says
Yes!!! This is the kind of cut out sugar cookie recipe I’ve been looking for as long as I can remember. It’s easy and delicious! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Pam Outt says
It was not clear to me which steps you used a mixer and which were done by hand. Please explain.
Thank you
Pam
The Clean Eating Couple says
I’m sorry but I’m not sure where the confusion is. You can make these in a stand mixer or in a bowl with a hand mixer. The dough needs to be mixed using either the stand mixer or a handheld mixer. Then you roll out the cookies and cut them out in shape with your hands. hope this helps!
Andrea says
How could I / how much cocoa powder to make them chocolate? is it possible?
The Clean Eating Couple says
These aren’t meant to be chocolate, sorry! I wouldn’t add cocoa powder.
Jill says
I followed the recipe but my dough is SUPER sticky and is sticking to the counter. I can’t cut out cookies because they’re stuck! What am I doing wrong?
The Clean Eating Couple says
I’ve never had this issue and made these cookies hundreds of times! but you should flour your surface and the top of the dough to roll them out. you can also try adding 1/4 cup of flour to the batter to see if it is less sticky