For us, sometimes wellness means indulging in sweets + making memories around fun food.
Yes, we choose organic ingredients wherever possible + aim for a mostly plant-based diet in our everyday living, but for special occasions, you bet you can find us wherever the sweets are.
You gotta live a little!
This homemade sugar cookie recipe can absolutely be made with 100% organic ingredients + these sugar cookies arguably even better when they’re decorated with homemade icing.
We make this recipe for the Christmas holiday season + attempt design decorating with the “fancy” bakers’ piping bags. With our decorative frosting attempt, this cookie-baking activity quickly becomes a hilarious, creative MESS all across the kitchen, dining room, family room… every room!
And we wouldn’t have it any other way because this is the goodness that we know our daughter will look forward to or reminisce about every holiday season when she’s older.
If you’re up for leaving your own cookie legacy + working this recipe into your own special holiday operations, consider trying this perfect homemade sugar cookie recipe that keeps mess + stress to a minimum… until you add that frosting, that is!
Ingredients
- 1 cup + 4 tablespoons butter, softened at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Beat the butter + sugar until light + fluffy using a hand mixer.
- Add in the egg, egg yolk + vanilla then eat until well combined.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder + salt.
- Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture + gently mix on low speed. Once the flour is about absorbed, add the remainder of the flour mixture + mix until just combined. Note: Do not over mix + be sure to thoroughly scrape the sides + bottom of your bowl every so often while mixing.
- Roll to a 1/4 inch thickness.
- Cut using your desired cookie cutters. Use an offset spatula to lift the cookies off the surface + place the cookies on the prepared tray. If you are decorating with sprinkles, this is when you would sprinkle your cookies.
- Bake for 11 to 13 minutes. These cookies are done when they are barely golden brown on the edges.
- Allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes + transfer to a baking rack to finish cooling.
- Decorate as desired.
What we love about this recipe is that you can make the dough in advance + it will keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge. We split the batch + bake the first half on the same day we make the dough, which is usually at the beginning of the holiday season. Then, we wrap the remaining half for saving specifically for Christmas week. Otherwise, we all have too much of a sweet tooth (+ too little discipline) to save some cookies for Santa or our guests!
Tell us: will you be saving this recipe to your favorites list?
Share your cookie baking operations in the comments below + let us know if you want that icing recipe for decorating!