Cut Out Sugar Cookies

I know my way pretty well in the kitchen and though I don’t bake often, I love me a good cookie. My original cookie recipe was for Snickerdoodles, but this one is sans cinnamon!

One thing I did forget was to chill my cut outs before popping them in the oven, which caused them to expand a bit. If anyone asks, the border was intentional! lol.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks softened)

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 3 cups all purpose flour

• 1 egg

• 1 TBSP butter vanilla

• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F.

• In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth

• Beat in vanilla extract extracts and egg.

• Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients

• Wet your hands and knead dough (it can be very stiff and dry)

• Roll out onto a floured surface and cut (1/4 inch)

• Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. and allow to fully cool before handling.
  

For the cookies, I used hearts and numbers to create shapes. I was told that circles are actually one of the hardest shapes because even when cut perfectly, they tend to lose shape once they expand. Again, my cookies expanded way more than expected which could have easily been prevented had I chilled them for a few minutes prior to throwing them into the oven.

I baked them for about 6-7 minutes and left them to cool down before transferring them to a cooling rack. I actually baked the cookies ahead of time and stored them in an airtight container so I could work on decorating them the following day.

I chose to work with fondant over royal icing because I felt it would be easier for me. I went ahead and purchased a large container or white fondant and picked up an assortment of gel coloring so that I could mix the colors as needed.

I was a bit disappointed with the way the cookies turned out, but I think one thing that really made the cookie look better was the letter stamping! I purchased cookie stamps that were perfect for adding a little message on each cookie.

I had a lot of fun making the cupcake toppers and cookies & I’ll be sure to add the full stories to my highlights! Hope my amateur cookie decorating skills will encourage some of you to try them at home too!

xoxo,

Su & Tay