The Best Homemade Sugar Cookies

Every Christmas I bake these sugar cookies. Every Christmas my husband belts out George Strait’s Christmas Cookies. I guess you could say both are traditions in our home.

I inherited this recipe from my husband’s family and they are the best sugar cookies I have ever tasted. Crisp and buttery on the edges, soft and sweet in the middle. Sugar cookie perfection.

This year, I thought it’d be fun to get my toddler involved in our cookie baking tradition.

Hey, Elly, do you want to help me make cookie dough?
No.
El, let’s cut out the sugar cookies!
No tanks, Mama.
Elly Bean, let’s decorate the sugar cookies!
No, I playing.

Hmm. This wasn’t quite working out like I’d expected. I was bending over backward to make this happen, even using my this-is-going-to-be-so-fun! voice. Before visions of creating a new Christmas tradition all but disappeared, I remembered I was still holding the wild card: sprinkles. That did the trick.

We frosted and sprinkled to our hearts content, making a huge mess and great memories.

Roll & Cut Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk
1 t. vanilla extract
5 cups flour
1 t. salt
4 t. baking powder

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.
2. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, stirring until combined.
4. Chill dough. Roll to ¼” thickness and cut into desired shapes.
5. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges.
6. Cool. Frost or glaze.

These cookies are the perfect sweet treat to serve around the holidays, but they are also great for…

Packing and giving as a gift or selling at a bake sale. These clear, plastic bags are inexpensive and perfect for packaging stacks of cookies. Just change the ribbon to fit the occasion!

Valentine’s Day or other special days. My mother-in-law used to bake and frost a big batch of these on her kids’ birthdays. She would bring them into the classroom with the names of all the kids in the class piped with frosting on the top. If that wouldn’t make you the most popular mom kid at school, I don’t know what would!

Or just a sweet treat on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Works for me.

If you’re looking for a frosting recipe, we have a delicious cream cheese frosting recipe listed here or a dairy-free vanilla frosting listed here.

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I have never been a fan of rolling out dough. It can feel so time consuming and labor intensive. I love the end product, but I hate the tedious process. I kind of move around my kitchen like a small hurricane, lots of speed and multi-tasking, very little finesse and fuss.

Then my sister bought me this French Rolling Pin a year ago, and I absolutely love it. Something about it makes rolling out dough a pleasure instead of a pain. It’s smooth, lightweight, and easy to use: the perfect rolling pin. It is definitely one of those kitchen tools that I now look forward to pulling out of the drawer and putting to use. The simple design is both beautiful and useful. It is ranked #1 in Amazon rolling pins and priced really well!

Looking for more delicious cookie recipes?

Find more frugal homemaking posts here and a list of amazing recipes here.

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