The Best Sugar Cookies

When I was young, my parents and I used to travel to see our extended family for the Thanksgiving holiday. As an only child, it was valuable time spent developing relationships with my cousins and building holiday traditions and memories. One tradition that I always remember and look back on fondly was our Christmas cookie baking. Every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving we would get together as a family and bake cookies as a way of kicking off the Christmas season. My grandmother would have made many batches of this dough ahead of time and had it ready to go in her freezer. We could all get together at my aunts house and would be allowed complete creative freedom to roll out and cut out the dough and decorate our cookies with as many sprinkles as we desired. We had so much fun creating all sorts of delicious treats and had such joy seeing what they would look like when they came out of the oven. Now, as a mom, when I look back on this tradition, I appreciate it in so many new ways. I truly cannot imagine how long it took to clean up the mess that the seven of us made with cookie dough and sprinkles everywhere. But no one ever seemed to mind. We were left to enjoy the time together as kids. I remember being so excited to bring home my container of cookies at the end of the day.

I now use this same recipe when I make sugar cookies with my kids, and it is one of their favorite cookies to make. We have started to do them a little differently and decorate them with our favorite buttercream icing and sprinkles after they are cooled. This was the way my husband decorated cookies as a kid, and it is also a little easier to manage with young kids. My kids do still help roll out and cut out the cookies as well, but it seems a little easier when they decide that they want to taste some runaway sprinkles that they are not also working with raw cookie dough. Either way you want to make these cookies, they are sure to be delicious! I hope you enjoy making some delicious cookies and holiday memories with your kids or your friends this year.

The Best Sugar Cookies

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Ingredients

  

• 1 cup butter softened
• 3 oz cream cheese softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 egg
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp. salt

Instructions

 

• In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl with a hand mixer, mix butter, cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and egg on medium speed until light and fluffy.
• Add flour and mix on low until all of the flour is incorporated.
• Transfer dough to a smaller bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least two hours, or up to 24 hours.
• When ready to make cookies, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly flour the counter or wherever you plan to cut out your cookies. Lightly flour the rolling pin as well. Working with small amounts of dough at a time, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick.
• Cut the dough into the desired shapes with your favorite cookie cutters and place on ungreased cookie sheets about 1 inch apart. I like to use small amounts at a time, rerolling the scraps to make additional cookies and then when I have finished most of that dough, add some fresh dough from the bowl and roll it out again. The more times you roll out the dough the warmer it gets, which can make it harder to work with, so as you add fresh, cooler dough it helps it become easier to cut out again.
• Bake for about 6 minutes until the edges and bottom are lightly golden. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack. When completely cooled you can decorate with your favorite icing. We love to use buttercream. Alternatively you can decorate the cookies with sprinkles before you bake them and have them already decorated when they come out of the oven. (I prefer to decorate with frosting and sprinkles after they are baked, partially because the frosting is delicious, and partially because it is easier for kids to work with the dough already baked. However, as I kid we always used to decorate with sprinkles first, and that was really fun too!)