Easy Sugar Cookies

This Easy Sugar Cookies recipe makes the BEST frosted sugar cookies! No chilling the dough and no rolling – an easy sugar cookie recipe that makes the softest and chewiest sugar cookies that taste just like Lofthouse cookies!

 

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Is there any treat more quintessentially “Christmas” than sugar cookies? We love making them for the holidays, and this Easy Sugar Cookies recipe is hands down our FAVOURITE way to make sugar cookies – the easy way!

We shared our favourite Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookie Bars recipe with you here on the blog years ago and it’s become a reader favourite. If you’re into soft and chewy sugar cookies with fluffy frosting, our Easy Sugar Cookies are where it’s at. Not only are they the ultimate sugar cookie, they’re quick and easy to make with no chilling of the dough and no rolling and cutting required. They’re truly sugar cookie royalty – trust us, you’re going to LOVE them!

Sugar cookies are a classic treat that likely originated from an 18th-century German biscuit. They’ve always been made with 3 primary ingredients: sugar, butter, and flour. Over the years they’ve been made less and less sturdy and crispy, and more soft, chewy, and tender.

Today’s sugar cookies are known for their soft, pillowy texture and are often topped with a fluffy frosting and decorated with sprinkles or other edible decorations.

Sugar cookies are made throughout the year and decorated for a variety of seasons and holidays including Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and even St. Patrick’s Day. This no-chill, no-roll, no-cut recipe is easy enough to make and decorate any time of the year!

1. The Right Consistency of Dough for the Best Texture: Achieving the right dough consistency is very important. Your dough should be firm enough to hold its shape when rolled into balls but soft enough to be slightly pliable. If the dough is too dry, your cookies might crumble. If the dough is too wet, the dough will be too sticky and difficult to roll, and they will probably spread too much during baking. A good trick is to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before baking. This ensures the butter solidifies in the dough, which means it will be easier to work with and will bake up perfectly in the oven.
2. Proper Spacing on the Baking Sheet to Avoid Merging Cookies: No one wants a mega-cookie formed by smaller cookies merging together. Ensure that you space your dough balls at least 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. This gives each cookie ample space to spread without interfering with the other cookies.

There are two pieces of kitchen equipment I use every single time I bake cookies!

1. Achieving the Perfect Cookie Size: Uniformity is key for even baking. Using a cookie scoop (paid link) is our favourite trick for uniform cookies, the easy way! It helps ensure that each cookie is roughly the same size, which leads to consistent baking times and textures.
2. Optimal Baking Temperature and Time to Achieve the Desired Cookie Texture: Most recipes recommend baking at around 350°F (175°C). However, oven temperatures can vary, so keep a close eye on your first batch to judge the perfect baking time for your oven. One of our most important baking tips is to use an oven thermometer (paid link)! Most home bakers don’t have one, but it’s a CRITICAL kitchen tool that allows you to know whether or not your oven temperature is accurate! This will help you adjust baking times and the temperature of your oven and will prevent you from burning or under-baking your holiday treats!

1. Over-baking: Over-baked cookies can be dry and hard. If the edges start to darken significantly, they’re likely overdone. Using an oven thermometer to help ensure your oven’s temperature is accurate can prevent over-baking. Don’t forget to set a timer when baking!
2. Preventing the cookies from falling apart: Letting your cookies cool on the pan is the best way to ensure they keep their shape after baking. Cookies continue baking and set in the middle after they’ve been removed from the oven. The cooling process is a critical step to achieving the perfect cookies! Be sure to cool them most of the way before removing them gently and carefully to a cooling rack to cool completely.
3. Ensuring your cookies don’t crumble, break or spread : If your dough is too dry, your cookies might crumble. If the dough is too wet, the cookies might spread. Ensure you’ve measured your ingredients accurately and used ingredients at the right temperature – your eggs and butter should be at room temperature, and your ingredients can be weighed for accuracy (use grams) or measured carefully (be sure to fluff and scoop your flour so it’s not packed too tightly).

If you’re making this Easy Sugar Cookie recipe for the first time, or you’re looking to up your Sugar Cookies game, We’ve got all the tips and tricks you need to make sure your next batch of sugar cookies is nothing short of perfection!

The secret to the perfect sugar cookies recipe lies in the quality and temperature of the ingredients. Go for the good stuff – high quality butter that’s COOL, not warm (and not cold from the fridge) and pure vanilla extract. Be sure to leave your eggs out at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes before mixing up the dough and don’t skip sifting the dry ingredients – this will prevent lumps in the cookie dough and create a delectably soft and cakey texture.

Nobody wants a flat sugar cookie or one that’s dry and hard – it’s all about that soft, cakey middle and cookies that spread just the right amount. The leavening agents are crucial here. Make sure your baking powder is fresh because it’s what causes the cookies to puff up in the oven. Also, don’t over-beat the dough; just mix until the ingredients are combined. Overworking the dough activates the gluten, leading to cookies that look and feel more like hockey pucks.

To refrigerate or not? THAT is the ultimate baking question. If you’re asking yourself whether or not your dough is too soft, it might be. To make cookies with the perfect texture, use cool butter, not butter that’s too warm or too cold. If you’re unsure, refrigerate the dough until solid and then let it relax at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes before rolling. The key here is that the dough should be chilled enough that you should be able to roll them without the dough sticking to your hands, but the dough should also be relaxed enough that the cookies spread just the right amount when baking.

Our Easy Sugar Cookies recipe calls for baking powder, not baking soda and there are several reasons for this:

1. Baking soda promotes browning. The best Lofthouse sugar cookies are very blond and don’t brown on the edges at all. This is part of what makes them so soft and cakey. Baking powder adds lift and air into the cookie dough while it bakes but doesn’t cause the cookies to brown like baking soda does.
2. Baking soda makes cookies spread more. This is because when dough contains baking soda it sets more slowly than doughs that don’t contain baking soda. This causes cookies to spread and flatten more than cookies made with baking powder.
3. Baking soda makes cookies more firm and chewy. This is because it doesn’t cause baked goods to rise as much as baking powder does. Denser, more chewy cookie recipes call for baking soda and cookie recipes that are more soft and cakey call for baking powder. Some recipes call for both to create the perfect texture. This is why following the recipe is so important.
4. Baking powder adds an airy, light texture. Most baking powders are double-acting, which means they provide lift and air to the cookie dough when they come into contact with liquid (ex: the butter mixture) AND when they come into contact with heat. This creates cookies that are lighter and fluffier.

Even the best holiday bakers hit a few bumps along the road. If you find yourself in a sugar cookie recipe conundrum when making this easy sugar cookie recipe, here’s how to troubleshoot:

If your cookies are spreading out and flattening, your kitchen might be a tad too warm or the butter you used was too warm, making the dough too soft. If this happens, stick your dough in the fridge and chill it for 2 hours. Then remove the dough from the fridge, let rest for 20-30 minutes and try again. This should help them spread perfectly.

If your cookies look like high mounds on your baking sheet, it’s probably because the butter you used was too cold or you added a little too much flour to the dough. To fix this, after you roll the balls of dough with your hands, press them down slightly to flatten them a little bit before baking. Be sure they don’t crack around the edges as you do this. If they do, smooth out the edges with your hands.

Dough too sticky? Refrigerate it. Refrigerating the dough causes it to become easier to roll and less sticky. It will be firm enough to roll but still a bit tacky. If it’s too dry and crumbly, it could be that the measurements were off or the ingredients weren’t mixed thoroughly.

The 2 biggest cookie-baking mistakes home bakers make when making a homemade sugar cookie recipe is using butter that’s either too cold (hard) or too warm (soft), and mis-measuring the ingredients. Both these errors have a BIG impact on the dough consistency and the end result.

Looking for PERFECT drop sugar cookies? Here are my best sugar cookie baking tips for this easy sugar cookie recipe:

1. Sift the dry ingredients! – Nobody likes clumpy, lumpy cookies, or cookies that don’t rise properly in some places. To ensure your sugar cookies are soft and fluffy with a cake-like texture, sift together your flour with the leavening agents (baking powder, etc.) to ensure the perfect rise!
2. Soft butter! – If your butter is too cold you’ll end up with rock hard cookies. If your butter is too soft you’ll end up with cookies that melt all over the baking pan (and nobody wants that!). Remove your butter from the fridge only about 30 minutes before baking (in a normal, room-temperature kitchen) and make sure it’s not rock hard and not so soft it’s practically melting either. Firmly spreadable is a good texture to go for when making sugar cookies
3. Don’t over-bake! – If the edges of your sugar cookies start to become brown, they’re over-baked. Watch the top of the cookies as they bake to judge the doneness – if the cookies lose their shine on top, they’re done!
4. Cool your cookies on the baking pan! – Cooling your sugar cookies on the baking pan will ensure they don’t lose their shape if you try to move them to a cooling rack a little too soon. The cookies continue baking on the inside even after you’ve removed them from the oven and it’s best not to move them until the baking process is completed (you’ll know they’re ready to move if they’re cool and firm to the touch).

Holiday baking requires that you have some basic kitchen equipment on hand. Here’s a list of our favourite kitchen items for baking during the holiday season (paid links):

1. A Stand Mixer. A stand mixer is one of our favourite pieces of kitchen equipment, especially for holiday baking. It makes whipping up cookie dough or dough for cinnamon buns an absolute breeze, and whipping cream or egg whites takes almost no effort at all with a stand mixer. This KitchenAid stand mixer is one we’ve used for almost 20 years and we love it!
2. A Hand Mixer. A good quality hand mixer is a great substitute for a stand mixer if you don’t have one and a stand mixer isn’t a good fit for your budget. We love our KitchenAid hand mixer and use it all the time in The Busy Baker kitchen!
3. Good Quality Mixing Bowls. Having a set of good mixing bowls is critical for holiday baking. Whether you’re melting chocolate or whipping up cookie dough, these stainless steel mixing bowls do a great job!
4. Measuring Cups and Spoons. Measuring your ingredients properly is an important part of baking. Here’s a set of measuring cups and spoons for dry ingredients we recommend.
5. Liquid Measuring Cups. When measuring liquid ingredients it’s important to use measuring cups that are meant for measuring liquids. These liquid measuring cups are our favourite ones.
6. A Kitchen Scale. If you’re preparing a more difficult recipe that requires that your ingredient amounts be precise, a kitchen scale is great because you can accurately measure your ingredients in grams or ounces. Here’s our favourite kitchen scale we use almost daily.
7. A Whisk. A whisk is an important tool for blending dry ingredients, making glazes or sauces, and so many other uses! Here’s our favourite whisk to use for baking.
8. A Silicone Spatula. A silicone spatula is great for scraping down the bowl when baking, and incorporating ingredients together without adding air into your batter. It’s always a bonus when your silicone spatulas are heat safe for making caramel on the stovetop. Check out our favourite silicone spatulas for baking!
9. Microwave Safe Bowls. Because you can’t put metal in the microwave, having a good set of glass or pyrex bowls is important for tasks like melting chocolate in the microwave. Here’s our favourite set of pyrex bowls for baking.
10. Baking Sheets. What kind of baking sheets you use will depend on the size of your oven, but these Nordic Ware Baking Sheets and these Wilton Baking Sheets are our top 2 favourite baking sheets for all our baking needs.
11. Parchment Paper. We always stock up on parchment paper before the holidays because it’s the best way to keep your baking sheets from becoming stained, it prevents your cookies from sticking when baking, and it helps keep your holiday treats looking beautiful when they’re packed and stored in the freezer.
12. A Cookie Scoop. We love our cookie scoop and use it every single time we bake cookies! It creates cookies that are uniform in size and shape which helps them not only look beautiful but also bake evenly!
13. A Silicone Turner. Removing your cookies from the baking sheet with precision requires a turner that easily slips underneath the cookies. Here’s our favourite silicone turner for this job!
14. Cooling Racks. Cooling your holiday baking before before storing is absolutely critical, so having a set of cooling racks on hand is essential!

Here’s what you’ll need to make this Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe (paid links):

1. Baking Sheets
2. Parchment paper
3. a Cookie scoop
4. a silicone turner
5. a set of cooling racks
6. a silicone spatula
7. a set of measuring cups and spoons
8. a stand mixer OR a hand mixer and some mixing bowls

To make this easy sugar cookie recipe, you’ll need these ingredients (paid links):

FOR THE COOKIES:

• 2/3 cup unsalted butter at cool room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

FOR THE FROSTING:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar sifted to remove lumps
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream or half and half
• food colouring and multicoloured sprinkles of your choice, if desired

We hope you love this easy sugar cookie recipe as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite Christmas cookie? We’d love to know!  

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