I’ve got a good old fashioned easy sugar cookie recipe for you.
The holidays are a popular time of the year to make roll out sugar cookies. It’s fun to cut out all sorts of festive holiday cookie shapes and decorate them to your heart’s content with a variety of colored frosting and sprinkles. I bet it’s a holiday tradition for many of you to bake cookies with your family. After all, the holidays are all about spending time with loved ones (and eating as many cookies as possible).
There are a ton of sugar cookie recipes out there. I’m sure you have a favorite and I would love to what it is. Do you use a secret ingredient, like corn starch? Do you chill the cookie dough? Do you freeze the cookie dough? Do you cut out the shapes and freeze and/or chill the cookie dough again? I’ve done a lot of research (I mean a lot), tried different recipes, and tested different techniques. I have not found anything that 100% prevents the cookies from spreading. Roll out sugar cookies spread when they bake. Yes, it’s a fact and I’m sticking to that (at least for now).
I honestly got so overwhelmed trying to find that “perfect” recipe. Does anyone who’s not a food blogger even care about a little cookie spreading? I guarantee you that the people eating them don’t care. In fact the more steps there are in the recipe, the less likely they are to make them because they don’t have the time to do it. They just want to have fun baking cookies and then of course eating them. Sometimes being a food blogger and a perfectionist prevents me from seeing what people really want. I should share a particular recipe with you because I love it and I do love this sugar cookie recipe. It’s an easy recipe that requires basic ingredients and few steps. Most importantly, it tastes delicious. It’s not too hard and not too soft, but just the right texture for a sugar cookie. In fact, I made them a few years ago and covered them with chocolate and sprinkles.
I do have to forewarn you that you do have to chill the cookie dough in the fridge for a little while after you make the dough (my husband cringes because he hates when you have to chill any dough for any period of time). However, the cookie dough is simply too soft to roll out and you really need it to firm up before you work with it.
My husband has just requested I relay his sure fire way to end up with cookies that don’t spread at all. Simply bake a big sheet of cookie and then cut them out afterwards. It’ll work every time. He concedes that it will also “waste” vast amounts of otherwise serviceable cookie, but as a fan of practically all cookies, he doesn’t consider the left over edges to be a waste since they taste the same. Be aware that the edges of your cookies will look a little different than when you cut them before you bake them, but a lot of the time you’re slathering something else on them anyway so who will notice the edges?
Now for the fun part… decorating! Of course you can cover them with frosting and sprinkles. Kids love that. I’m not artistic when it comes to frosting cookies, so this year I decided to turn the classic sugar cookie into sandwiches. Turning the classic sugar cookie into a sandwich does require a few more steps but I promise you that they’re easy and worth it. I used chocolate hazelnut spread for the filling. Yum. You can use your favorite jam instead because I think that would be equally tasty. Some of my family members don’t like jam but they all love chocolate hazelnut spread.
Sugar Cookie Sandwiches with Chocolate Hazelnut Recipe
(Makes about 13 cookie sandwiches)
Note: Requires 1 and 1/2 hours of chilling time for the cookie dough.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter (equivalent to 1 stick)
- 2/3 cup white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (equivalent to 6.8 ounces)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- chocolate hazelnut spread (I used Nutella.)
- powdered sugar
Directions:
- In a large bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the egg and vanilla extract. Set the wet ingredients aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 and 1/2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Lightly flour your working surface and roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.
- Cut out 13 shapes with a 2 inch fluted round cookie cutter. These will be the bottom or base of the cookie sandwich. Bake these for 10 minutes. (See notes below.)
- Cut out an additional 13 shapes with the 2 inch fluted round cookie cutter. These will be the top of the cookie sandwich.
- Then cut out 13 star shapes in the middle of 13 of the fluted round cut cookies you made for the tops. The goal is to make a ring like cookie so that you can see the filling in the cookie. Bake the 13 ring looking cookies and the stars for 8 minutes. (The stars can be recombined into other shapes instead of baking them if you like.)
- Let the cookies cool on the pan for 1 to 2 minutes and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once the cookies have cooled completely, take the 13 top cookies (the ones without a hole) and place them on your work surface with their flat bottoms facing up.
- Spread some chocolate hazelnut spread over the cookie and then set them aside.
- Take the 13 cookies that look rings (with the stars cut out) and place them on your work surface with the flat bottoms facing down and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. (Do this before assembling the sandwiches to keep the powdered sugar off of your chocolate hazelnut spread.) Then place them, flat bottom side down, on top of the halves you spread chocolate hazelnut spread on to.
- What to do with little stars? You can make them into sandwiches too or simply sprinkle powdered sugar on top for tiny simple sugar cookies.
Note: I used a 2 inch fluted cookie cutter and about a 1 inch star cookie cutter. If you use bigger cutters then you will need to adjust the baking time accordingly (usually more baking time) and you will get fewer sandwich cookies than this recipe says you’ll get. The reverse is true if you use smaller cookie cutters.
Even if you use the same size cookie cutters as me, every oven differs so watch your cookies. You want them to bake to the point where they are slightly soft to the touch. They may look under-cooked but they will set as they cool.
Adapted from: Baker’s
I love these Tina! You’re right about using any filling. If I were to get ambitious, I may even fill the cutout with chopped nuts or sprinkles.