Best Sugar Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a perfect cookie? ›

Lack of Flavor

Let's face it, butter is the star ingredient when it comes to flavor. While shortening can be used as a replacement, it lacks the same depth of flavor and deliciousness that butter provides. So if you're looking for a truly flavorful cookie, we recommend sticking with butter.

When you think cookies, you likely think of sweet ingredients, but salt is essential. It balances the flavor of caramelized sugars. We even love sprinkling a little extra flake salt on our cookies to awaken the tongue and complement the sweetness.

If your cookie contains excess sugar or fat, it will spread while baking. If your first batch of cookies spreads, try adding a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken the remaining dough.

Your sugar cookies might be spreading because you are under-creaming or over-creaming the butter and sugar. Creaming the butter and sugar together creates structure in the cookie dough and adds pockets of air to give it a light texture. It's sometimes referred to as mechanical leavening.

If you want to make your cookies in advance… totally doable! 1 week before event: I start the process UP TO 1 week before the event and don't do any freezing in this time period (either of the icing or cookies).

Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate and helps to make the cookie dough firmer. Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies.

Tough – For rolled cookies, your dough can become “tough” by adding too much flour to your pin or counter before rolling it out. To avoid this, try using as little flour as possible while preparing to roll your dough.

If your cookies are turning out too bland, try adding a bit of brown sugar. instead of just white sugar. White sugar, like caster sugar or granulated sugar, does sweeten the dough, but it doesn't really add any actual flavor.

What brings out the flavor in cookies? ›

Add more complex proteins, like malted milk powder and brown butter. Caramelizing the sugar beforehand brings bright notes to your cookies, but you can further expand your dessert's flavor profile by playing with proteins.

You can upgrade your cookie dough by adding spices to it, said Tracy Wilk, lead chef at the Institute of Culinary Education. This can lead to a warm, spicy cookie. To do so, combine ground cinnamon, ginger, and sugar, and then roll your balls of cookie dough in the mix before baking.

Another thing you can use to counteract the raw, flour taste is to add flavorings to the batter or dough. Vanilla extract is commonly used, but there are other extracts and flavorings you can try, too. For example, almond extract goes well in baked goods with cherries and rum flavoring is great with a spice mixture.