Frosted Holiday Sugar Cookies
Updated Aug. 24, 2022
- Total Time
- 40 minutes, plus chilling and decorating
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2½cups/312 grams all-purpose flour, more for rolling
- 1teaspoon/5 grams baking soda
- 1teaspoon/3 grams cream of tartar
- ½teaspoon/3 grams kosher salt
- 1cup/228 grams unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
- 1½cups/188 grams confectioners sugar
- 2teaspoons/10 milliliters vanilla extract
- 1large egg
- 3¾cups/1 pound/454 grams confectioners’ sugar
- 3large egg whites
- ½teaspoon cream of tartar
- Pinch kosher salt
- Food coloring, as needed
For the Cookies
For the Royal Icing
Nutritional analysis per serving (48 servings)
113 calories; 4 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 1 gram monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 13 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 61 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt.
- Step 2
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla, then beat in egg.
- Step 3
Add flour mixture and beat until just combined. Divide the dough in half, pat into flat rectangles, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Step 4
Divide each dough parcel in half, and roll out to ⅛-inch thickness between two sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Repeat with remaining dough. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.
- Step 5
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line four cookie sheets with parchment paper, sprinkling with a little flour if the dough seems sticky. Cut out shapes from the rolled and chilled dough and place on prepared sheets 1-inch apart. Bake until golden around the edges, 8 to 13 minutes. Let cool.
- Step 6
Meanwhile, prepare the royal icing: in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt. Whisk until stiff and glossy.
- Step 7
To tint the frosting, divide into small bowls. Cover the ones you aren’t using with plastic wrap; the frosting dries out very quickly. Use a rubber spatula to stir in desired food coloring. Though not necessary, it makes life easier if you make two versions of each color – one that is thick to pipe the outline on the cookie, and one that is thinned out slightly with a little water to flood the outline. Transfer frosting to piping bags fitted with very small round tips (sizes 1 to 2 work best).
- Step 8
Pipe frosting onto cooled cookies and let set, at least 2 hours. Or use a pastry of paint brush to decorate cookies with the frosting.
Private Notes
Comments
Just bear in mind that kosher salt generally substitutes for table salt 2:1, so that a 1/4 tsp of table salt would be the same as a 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt.
The dough can be crumbly if there's too much flour added from accidentally over-packing the measuring cup.
If you have a scale, weighing is more exact. If not, try spooning the flour into the measuring cup lightly, making sure not to pack it.
This is the exact recipe we have been making for over 40 years - well it has more vanilla. Got it from a junior high home ec teacher. The cornstarch makes for a more tender dough that can be rolled repeatedly without getting tough. I roll the dough before chilling between sheets of waxed paper and then cut the cookies. Just peel the paper off before cutting to free the dough.
These cookies worked out well for me. I used various cookie cutters and the cookies held their shape well, didn’t have any of the problems others experienced. I froze the cookie dough for several days before rolling them out, so maybe that helped. I skipped the Royal icing and frosted them with a simple glaze made from powdered sugar, OJ, milk, a bit of corn syrup and a bit of butter. Cookies were tasty and beautiful with the glaze and some sparkly sugar and sprinkles. Happy New Year to all! Some
FYI- this recipe is NOT for cookie cutter cookies. They don’t hold their shape at all. The NYT could have made a note in the description of this recipe, as most of us associate frosted holiday butter-sugar cookies with cookie cutter shaping. But upon closer look at the picture for the recipe, it’s clear that they did not use intricate cookie cutter shapes, and instead only simple round shapes. So save yourself your time, effort, and the disappointment of your kids when their shapes bake into blobs, and skip this recipe for cookie cutter shaping.
I’m at high altitude and followed this to the t. Chilled overnight and these spread out into amorphous amoebas. 10/10 do not recommend. Alison Roman’s sugar cookie recipe worked great.