These sugar cookies are great for when you need a Christmas cookie recipe that is quick and easy. They hold their shape perfectly and are delicious to boot!
I have a confession to make – I have never made a sugar cookie before now! To be perfectly honest I hadn’t really even heard of them until recently. I’m sure that I have seen them before but because they look so much like shortbread biscuits I have ignored them. Big mistake!
You see until recently I have never really enjoyed Christmas biscuits. I don’t like shortbread biscuits much and since they are popular at Christmas time I have just dismissed having Christmas cookies or biscuits.
Until now I have been obsessed by fruit mince pie and traditional Christmas fruit cake during the Christmas season. That has all changed now that I have discovered this great recipe for sugar cookies. I still enjoy my mince pies and fruit cake but I can now join in on the Christmas cookie bandwagon.
I love that these sugar cookies can be made fairly thick and that they are quick and easy to make. In fact you need to watch these cookies while baking because they should be just starting to brown on the edges when they are done. This ensures that the cookies are cooked through but that they still retain an inner softness when cooled. They also seem to have just the right amount of sweetness!
These sugar cookies would really be suitable for any occasion but they are just perfect for Christmas because they hold their shape beautifully when baking. I have had my new Christmas cookie cutters working overtime lately as I churn out these tasty cookies.
As I mentioned, they are very easy to make! I use my mixer to cream the butter and sugar, mix in the egg and vanilla and then slowly add the dry ingredients. One tip I do have though is that once you have added most of the dry ingredients, switch to using dough hooks if you have any. This dough is fairly thick and I find that my regular mixing attachments struggle a bit.
To get the different colours I just divided the dough and then added a few drops of food colouring. I kneaded the food colouring into the cookie dough until it was evenly coloured.
The dough needs to be chilled, but it can be for as little as 1 hour or I have found that when covered it will keep just fine in the fridge for a couple of days.
I came across this recipe for No Fail Sugar Cookies which was shared by Jackie on the Cake Central website. I actually halved the recipe quantities provided and I still managed to get around 50 fairly thick sugar cookies.
Jackie suggested rolling the dough out between sheets of baking paper and I also highly recommend doing this. It saves on flour and makes the clean-up super easy!
- 1 cup (250 g) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 3 cups of plain flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- Combine dry ingredients and set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar in mixer until it is light and fluffy.
- Add egg and vanilla extract and mix well.
- Slowly add dry ingredients to butter and sugar mixture (change attachments to dough hooks if necessary).
- Shape the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 °F).
- Remove dough from fridge and roll to desired thickness (mine were just under 1 cm thick – bit more than ¼ inch).
- Cut into shapes and then bake on baking paper for 7 to 10 minutes (they should just have a slight brown tinge around edges).
- Remove from oven and cool on tray.
I am so glad that I found these yummy cookies as they are just perfect for making Christmas shaped cookies. But I am sure that I will be making these many times during the year!
Do you have a favourite cookie/biscuit at Christmas time?
Hi, I'm Kaylene, and I'm a keen gardener,budding baker and wannabe DIYer!
Hi. I want to make these. How did you colour them please? Is it food colouring in the dough or frosting once cooked?
Hi Helen, I just used a few drops of food colouring to colour some of the dough green and some red. I was able to get these colours by kneading the food colouring into the cookie dough. I hope this helps!
Thank you! Making them as gifts for colleagues
Yes, these are a great idea for a home made gift! I gave some of them away as gifts last year, glad you liked them!