Sugar Cookie Recipes

Welcome to Sugar Cookie Recipe Central

Here you will find many different sugar cookie recipes, including my maternal grandmother's lemon "Seventeen's". Sugar cookies come in many shapes and sizes and can be soft or crispy. For most americans they evoke memories of grandma's house. This is collection of different recipes, tools and even a mystery to help you bake your perfect sugar cookie.

Quick Find: Cut Out Cookies, Drop Cookies, Molded Cookies, Decorating Cookies, Cookie Presses, Molds and Stamps, Soft Lofthouse-Type Cookies, Food Network Sugar Cookie Collection, Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix Recipes

Image courtesy krystal.pritchett on Flickr

Sugar Cookies Pictures For Inspiration

Aren't they pretty?

Treats Truck sugar cookies by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake

Made Cookies for Jennah's BB Shower by 'Playingwithbrushes'

Sugar Cookie with Royal Icing and Fondant Spider by I am K.E.B

180::365 fireworks cookie tutorial! by .j.e.n.n.y.

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curated content from Flickr

"Seventeen's" Cut-Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

My Grandma's Lemon Sugar Cookie Recipe

These cookies are called "Seventeen's" because the recipe came from an issue of Seventeen magazine in the 1940's.

They are thin and crispy with a light lemon flavor. They are not overly sweet. They keep very well and I actually like them better a little stale because the lemon flavor comes up more the older they get.

The recipe makes several dozen cookies.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

1 1/2 cups shortening*
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs, well beaten

5 1/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

*(can be all shortening or a mixture of shortening and butter - I usually use 3/4 cups butter and 3/4 cups Crisco shortening)

Cream shortening. Add sugar gradually and cream together until light and fluffy. Stir in well-beaten eggs and beat until thick. Add lemon rind.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. See note below. Add dry ingredients to the shortening, sugar, egg and lemon mixture one cup at a time.

Divide into 3 or 4 parts, wrap in waxed paper, and chill thoroughly (several hours or overnight).

Once chilled, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick on a floured surface and cut out with cookie cutters. If you're baking in a warm climate you will want to keep each piece of dough in the refrigerator until you're ready to work with it. Otherwise I like to let it sit at room temperature for 5 or 10 minutes before I start rolling it out.

Place on ungreased baking sheets with a 1/2 inch margin between cookies to allow for any spreading. (If you don't want them to spread, chill entire sheet before baking.)

Add colored sugars, sprinkles, and any other decorations before baking.

Bake until just barely brown around the edges, which is 8 to 15 minutes depending on your oven and baking sheet.

Let cool and then frost undecorated cookies, if desired. (These are good just plain, too.)

Note: Since I've started using a Kitchen-Aid mixer to make these cookies I don't sift together the dry ingredients first. Instead, I mix in the salt and baking powder to the creamed mixture first, then add the flour. Also, depending on the weather and humidity, you may need slightly less flour. You want to end up with dough the consistency of Play-Dough. The sifting of dry ingredients is just to help distribute the salt and baking powder more evenly when you're mixing by hand.

Cookie Craft Christmas

Dozens of Decorating Ideas for a Sweet Holiday

For lots more decorating ideas see my Decorating Cookies lens.

Cookie Craft Christmas: Dozens of Decorating Ideas for a Sweet Holiday

by: Valerie Peterson, Janice Fryer

Amazon Price: $9.32 (as of 12/06/2009)

Each spread features a full-page, close-up photograph of one cookie cutter shape with detailed decorating instructions on the facing page. Some pages feature one gloriously decorated cookie, while others might feature two or three interpretations of the same shape - ornaments in complementary colors, Christmas trees decorated in varying styles, or gingerbread men wearing a rainbow of colors and patterns.

Decorating instructions are as simple as tinting cookie dough green before baking Christmas trees or as intricate as piping hair on a gingerbread grandma, creating a frilly pattern for her apron, and decorating her dress using a pretty feathering technique. Techniques are described in full in a Decorating Glossary, and cookie and icing recipes are included.

Publisher's Note:

The chart on page 17 gives ingredient quantities for making royal icing with meringue powder. Please note that you should use only 4 teaspoons of meringue powder for 2 cups of confectioners' sugar in both the piping and the flooding recipes. (The table incorrectly gives the meringue powder quantity as 4 tablespoons.) This will be corrected in reprints of the book.

Cut-Out Sugar Cookie Recipes

Best Ever Sugar Cookie Recipe?: Article with "grandma's" sugar cookie recipe in it.
Simply Recipes: Sugar Cookies Recipe: Two different recipes on one page.
No Fail Sugar Cookie Recipe « Fancy Flours: Where Bakers Bloom: These hold their shape. Wonder where they got the snowflake cutter?
Brown Sugar Shortbread: Cut-out shortbread recipe with a brown sugar twist.
"Mom's" Nutmeg Sugar Cookies: Basic roll-out sugar cookie with nutmeg to flavor them.
'Mom's' Old Fashion "Puffy" Sugar Cookies: "Mix all ingredients together like pie dough."
Norwegian Sugar Cookies: Must be the cream of tartar that makes them Norwegian.
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies: These have orange extract as a flavoring.
Martha Stewart's Basic Sugar Cookies: Basic cut out sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookies Recipe: Recipes: Food Network: Enjoy this Sugar Cookies recipe from Good Eats

To Roll or Not to Roll Sugar Cookie Recipe

From Gold Medal Flour

I just tested this recipe straight from the flour package and they are soooo delicious! I did the "not roll" version. Buttery, crispy, almondy goodness!

To Roll or Not to Roll

All About Decorating Cookies

Click on this button to visit my other lens about cookie decorating. While there you'll find many unusual decorating supplies such as you see below.

Decorating Cookies

India Tree Liquid Natural...

Edible Glitter, Pink, 1/4...

India Tree Lavender Paste...

Decorative Silver Dragees...

8MM Ivory Edible Pearls

Awesome Cookie Decorating Book

Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions

by: Valerie Peterson, Janice Fryer

Amazon Price: $12.32 (as of 12/06/2009)

A beautiful book about how to decorate sugar cookies for many different occasions.

Sugarplums Recipe

From my grandma, the Sugarplum Fairy

When my grandma Effie was making Seventeens at Christmas she would take the leftover butter and confectioner's sugar from the icing and make me some "sugarplums" (I was the only grandchild). They were very yummy and very magical to me. She would only make a few so I had to make them last through the holiday vacation.

Here is an approximation of the recipe:

- 1 stick of unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 5 cups of confectioners (powdered) sugar (more or less)
- 1/4 cup of cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond or rum or peppermint or other flavoring
- Sprinkles and/or non-pariels*

First beat the butter until creamy. (The colder you can keep the butter the better.) Then add flavoring, if desired. Then add enough confectioner's sugar to make a very stiff, dry frosting. Then add enough cream to make it smooth but still solid enough to mold into balls. Roll into small balls and roll in sprinkles, etc. to coat. Store in the refrigerator.

*Check out these peppermint flavored sprinkles.

Image courtesy of Overduebook on Flickr.

How to Make Sugar Cookies a Work of Art

The Flour Pot Cookie Book

by: Margie Greenberg, Abbey Greenberg

Amazon Price: $10.76 (as of 12/06/2009)

Sugarbakers Cookie Cutter Cookbook

by: Diana Collingwood Butts, Carol V. Wright

Amazon Price: (as of 12/06/2009)

Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion

by: Toba Garrett

Amazon Price: $9.32 (as of 12/06/2009)

Cookie Sensations: Creative Designs for Every Occasion

by: Meaghan Mountford

Amazon Price: $13.59 (as of 12/06/2009)

Super Soft, Melt in Your Mouth (like Lofthouse) Sugar Cookie Recipe

Super Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe and More!

Drop Sugar Cookie Recipes

Cooks.com - Recipe - Anne's Drop Sugar Cookies: Interesting recipe that uses buttermilk.
Astray Recipes: Lemon drop sugar cookies: Easy lemon drop sugar cookies.
Cooks Recipes | Drop Sugar Cookies Recipe: Almond and vanilla flavoring in these.
Cooks.com - Recipe - Soft Sugar Cookies: Uses shortening and baking soda.
Cooks.com - Soft Buttery Sugar Cookies: Uses one cup of butter and baking powder.

My Indispensible Kitchen Tool

It's worth every penny

KitchenAid KP26M1XNP Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixer, Nickel Pearl

Amazon Price: $323.99 (as of 12/06/2009)

For a long time I was a purist when it came to making cookies. If you didn't make them by hand, they weren't real cookies. Then I got older and I didn't have as much time. I'd watch Martha Stewart turn on her KitchenAid and watch everything be whipped up in no time. At last I got one of my own and it changed my life!

What a time saver it is! It is completely amazing. Sugar cookies that used to take 30 minutes to mix up now take 10. When I first got it I was thrown off by having all that extra time. And the thoroughness with which things are mixed is something to behold as well.

Not just for cookies, I use it for making bread, pastry, and even meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Seems like a lot of money, I know, but if you factor in how much you are worth an hour in wages it will pay for itself in no time.

Molded Sugar Cookie Recipes

Sugar Cookies With Options: With different ways to decorate and embellish.
Cookie Recipes: Recipes for both plain vanilla and chocolate cookies that can be molded by hand or with using a cookie mold.
Amish Sugar Cookies: Refrigerate overnight before molding into balls.
Raised Sugar Cookies: Yeast is an unusual ingredient in these cookies.
Mayonnaise Sugar Cookie Recipe: I like the idea of using mayonnaise as the shortening or oil.
No Roll Sugar Cookies: "Easy to make and no fuss with rolling them out, plus they have that delightful melt-in-your-mouth texture." Butter, shortening, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and cream of tartar.
Powdered Sugar Recipe: Butter flavored shortening, powdered sugar, and cream of tartar.

Cookie Presses, Molds and Stamps

Food Network's Sugar Cookie Recipe Box

Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie Recipe: Easy cut-outs rolled out on powdered sugar.
Colette Peters' Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe : : Food Network: Basic dough uses corn syrup as a sweetener. Cut out cookies using thin cardboard templates.
3-in-1 Sugar Cookies Recipe : Food Network Kitchens : Food Network: Roll, mold or refrigerate these cookies. Orange zest is the flavoring.
Monogrammed Sugar Cookies Recipe : Paula Deen : Food Network: *Cook's Note: You can use premade cookie dough or use the recipe to make almond flavored cookies from scratch.
Sugar Cookies with Pistachio and Dried Cherries Recipe : Robin Miller : Food Network: Uses premade refrigerated sugar cookie dough.
Painted Sugar Cookies Recipe : : Food Network: Use colored corn syrup to paint the cookies.
Kourabiedes (Greece): Walnut Sugar Cookies Recipe : Food Network Kitchens : Food Network: These are a Greek celebration cookie. Flavored with a touch of brandy and orange flower water.
Stained Glass Wreath Cookies Recipe : Sandra Lee : Food Network: Uses premade refrigerated cookie dough and melted hard candy.
Chewy Sugar Cookies Recipe : Gale Gand : Food Network: Buttermilk and a cup of butter in these. You can also roll the cookies in the sugar sprinkles before baking.

Sugar Cookie Recipes

Welcome to Sugar Cookie Recipe Central

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Sugar Cookies Pictures For Inspiration

Aren't they pretty?

"Seventeen's" Cut-Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

My Grandma's Lemon Sugar Cookie Recipe

Cookie Craft Christmas

Dozens of Decorating Ideas for a Sweet Holiday

Cut-Out Sugar Cookie Recipes

To Roll or Not to Roll Sugar Cookie Recipe

From Gold Medal Flour

All About Decorating Cookies

Awesome Cookie Decorating Book

Sugarplums Recipe

From my grandma, the Sugarplum Fairy

How to Make Sugar Cookies a Work of Art

Super Soft, Melt in Your Mouth (like Lofthouse) Sugar Cookie Recipe

Drop Sugar Cookie Recipes

My Indispensible Kitchen Tool

It's worth every penny

Molded Sugar Cookie Recipes

Cookie Presses, Molds and Stamps

Food Network's Sugar Cookie Recipe Box

Great Tools for Making Sugar Cookies

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Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix

These are amazingly good

Watch How to Make 'Em

Holiday Specific Sugar Cookie Recipes

Martha Stewart Sugar Cookie Recipes

Blogging about Sugar Cookies

Savory Sugar Cookies

Sweet, salty, herby - Savory!

Sugar Talk

Fun Social Networking Websites for Cooks!

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Sites About Sugar Cookies

Recipes and more

A Mystery to Read While Your Cookies Bake

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