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Everyone loves a good sugar cookie, am I right? They taste delicious, and decorating them is so fun! Here’s an easy sugar cookie recipe for you that you can make and decorate however you want.

Carolyn’s Sugar Cookies | Yield: ~2 dozen | Time: 2-3 hrs
1-1/2 cups butter or margarine 1-1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 eggs (faces recommended, but not required)
2 tablespoons milk 4 cups flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt

mixedsugar

In a large bowl, cream butter or margarine until smooth. Add sugar and vanilla and mix until well incorporated. Make sure that everything is fully mixed and that you’ve scraped down the sides.
wet-mixed

Add eggs and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy and consistent in color (no yellow streaks of egg). Stir in the milk. At this point, the mixture should be fully mixed, but it will be lumpy and very soft.

dough

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add about half of the dry mix into the wet mix, and stir well. Add in the rest and stir until a dough is formed. Make sure that your dough is fully mixed with no dry ingredients left in the bottom. Don’t worry if it’s sticky and soft right now; it’s supposed to be like that.

Cover the surface of the dough with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour. Now is a great time to look at ways to decorate sugar cookies on Netflix.

Once your dough is chilled and you have lots of great ideas, pull your dough out. Preheat your oven so it’s ready when you need it, and flour your surface so your dough doesn’t stick.

Take about one third of the chilled cookie dough and knead it a few times until it becomes a more solid ball.
Add more flour as needed so your dough cuts cleanly and doesn’t stick to the counter. Once your dough is just right, roll it to a thickness of about ¼ inch. Make sure your dough is evenly thick, or it won’t cook right.

Cut your cookie dough into the desired shapes. If you don’t have cookie cutters, get creative here! We just wanted basic circles, so we used a drinking glass, but you can use whatever you want.

Carefully transfer the cut dough onto an ungreased baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake at 350° for 9-12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to turn golden brown. Leave them on the tray for just a minute because they’ll be hot and easy to ruin right out of the oven.

Once the cookies have set, transfer them to a tray to cool. Make sure that you let your cookies cool before you decorate them or else they’ll run like my did. They’ll still taste good though!

And there you have it! A fun, easy treat!