Easy Sugar Cookies
I recently asked my oldest kid what his favorite cookie was. For whatever reason I seem to default a lot of my sweet questions to my daughter as she seems to always like dessert. I asked my oldest kid only because I rarely see him eat sweets anymore. Granted, the 34 pack of ice cream drumsticks I had stored in our freezer suddenly disappeared within days, but lets not go there. I was surprised as to what his response was. The first response was macadamia nut and white chocolate chip cookies, and the second is plain old sugar cookies. I think there were a few of us in the room when he said his favorite cookie was macadamia nut and white chocolate chip, only because we never have those in the house, and he doesn’t really gravitate to nuts and white chocolate! Go figure. I was totally jazzed on his response.
We had our first family vacation coming up for the summer, and I decided I would make batches of cookies, including both of his favorites, and offer them out during the week for an any time of day snack.
The sugar cookies though! These sugar cookies are just too simple to make, and it is a perfect treat anytime (and I mean anytime) of the day.
Let’s get started.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, measured first then sift
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups of butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar, divided
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- parchment paper, optional
Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees.
In the meantime, we will get to the relaxing part of creaming butter and sugar. Sounds good already!
Place the butter and 1 1/2 cups of sugar in a mixing bowl, with a mixer attachment. If you are doing this by hand, you will be mixing for a bit of time but it is achievable. While the butter and sugar are mixing, combine in another bowl the flour, baking powder, and salt. Give that a thorough mix.
After a few minutes of mixing the butter and sugar (you want to make sure it is nice, creamy, and a bit fluffy), slow down the mixer and add in the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla extract.
Mix for about 15 seconds, then slowly pour in the flour mixture and turn up the speed slightly. Stop after about a minute of mixing, and wipe down the sides of the inside of the bowl with a wooden spoon or offset spatula.
Continue to mix for about 30-60 seconds until everything is nicely incorporated.
OK, time to form some cookies.
To a small bowl, add in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. This will be used to top the cookies.
Take a large tablespoon of the of the cookie dough, and gently form and roll into a ball with your hands.
Roll the ball in the bowl of sugar to lightly coat.
Add the ball to the baking pan lined with parchment paper, and with the bottom of a glass (flat round shape works great), gently press down on the ball of the dough. Flatten to about 1/4 inch thick. Gently, but swiftly remove the glass from the dough leaving a nice round piece of cookie dough.
Repeat with the remaining dough, or until you fill up the sheet(s). These cookies will not spread out so don’t worry about them bleeding into one another.
Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them around 8 minutes in because once the edging starts to turn that light caramel color then they are about ready.
Remove them and slide them onto a cookie rack to cool.
Repeat the process until all of the dough is cooked.
The result? Let’s just say I know why these are one of my kids favorite cookies. They are light, a bit delicate, and perfectly sweet. They are so good they you still question why they are so good after every single cookie. AND TRUST ME, that is the hard part. You know that saying… ‘Please walk away from the cookies’ (in a police officer voice). That’s how these cookies are.
Simple, and awesome. That’s how these cookies are. Enjoy!