Decorator Sugar Cookies

I have a few recipes in my blog for sugar cookies. I have one that uses shortening in the recipe, then you frost the cookies with a fluffier type frosting. Then I have a recipe where you'd sprinkle with a decorating sugar before baking, and now this one, which would be great for royal icing and making all fancy using tips (Sorry! I am no where near that stage!). When I first saw Amanda of I am Baker's cookies I was blow away (go check out her cookies)! Man they are gorgeous! She was even kind enough to share the recipe she uses for her cookies, and icing!

I used this recipe for my daughter's heart shaped Valentine cookies for her class party. I have a few heart shaped cutters, but they are small, and aren't a good shaped heart (I wanted something that would hold it's shape when baked).



So I found a cute set of cutters which had a nice big 5" nice heart shape and little heart shapes with scalloped edges, so cute! I wanted a big shape so the kid's little hands could hold it and have lots of room to decorate.

These came out great!! I am really happy with this recipe. I baked mine for about 10-12 minutes, and they were rolled thinner than 1/4".




Sugar Cookie Recipe
may double recipe (I got about 28 -5" cookies from a double batch, plus some extra dough)

¾ cups Butter, room temp.
1 cup White Sugar
2 whole Eggs
1-½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2-½ cups All-purpose Flour
¼ teaspoons Cream Of Tartar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine room temperature (not melted) butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla and combine.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking powder, and salt. This is an important step; you want to avoid lumps in your dough.

Slowly add dry ingredients into wet batter until fully incorporated.

Drop dough onto a large piece of saran wrap, mold it into a 4×4 square, and refrigerate for at least one hour. I often let mine sit overnight.

When ready to bake the cookies, generously flour a flat surface and roll out the dough. You can use as much flour as you need! I prefer to make cookies about 1/4″ to 1/2″ thick, but you can go thicker and still have successful results.

For best results, bake on silpat or parchment paper. You can reuse parchment, too!

Bake at 325-350 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes. In my oven, right about 6 minutes yields a perfectly cooked cookie, with no brown edges.

enjoy,