Homemade Sugar Cookies with Icing
These are the best homemade sugar cookies with icing recipe with icing! They are soft and perfect for cutting out with cookie cutters! There is also an easy icing recipe to go with these sugar cookies! My family and I love to make these for Halloween and Christmas because they are so much fun to decorate. It is a great family activity to do together!
Equipment
- Kitchen Aid Mixer
- Rolling Pin
- Cookie Sheet
- Wax Paper
- Baking Paper
Ingredients
Sugar Cookie Dough:
- 1 Cup Butter
- ¼ Cup Sugar
- 1 Eggs
- 1 ½ Tsp. Vanilla Extract
- ½ Tsp. Almond Extract (Optional if you have a nut allergy.)
- 3 ½ Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 ½ Tsp. Baking Powder
- ¼ Tsp. Salt
Icing:
- 1 Cup Butter Softened
- ¾ Tsp. Vanilla Extract
- ¼ Tsp. Almond Extract (Optional if you have a nut allergy.)
- 4 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 2 Tbsp. Milk
- 1 Packet Food Coloring
Optional Toppings:
A variety of colored sprinkles, tubed icing for writing or drawing, nuts, candies, etc., to decorate your sugar cookies.
Instructions
Sugar Cookie Dough:
- In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar. (I use my Kitchen Aid Mixer for this recipe.)
- Next, add in the egg, vanilla, and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the large bowl and mix completely.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle between 2 sheets of wax paper with a rolling pin. Put the dough and wax paper onto a baking sheet and place it in the refrigerator.
- Chill the dough for about 20-30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees.
- Remove the top wax paper sheet and cut dough into shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer the cookie shapes to a baking sheet with parchment paper. This will keep the cookie from sticking to the pan.
- After cutting out all the shapes in the dough, ball up the scraps and roll out the dough again, between the wax paper sheets. Re-chill if needed, because you don’t want the dough to get to warm.
- Bake for 5 minutes and rotate the baking sheet on the oven racks for even cooking. Continue baking for another 5 minutes.
- Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely.
Icing:
- In a large bowl, mix butter, Vanilla Extract, Almond Extract, Powder Sugar, and milk.
- Divide the icing into smaller bowls. Add the food coloring to the different bowls to make the icing any color you want.
- Ice the cookies when they have cooled and decorate with optional toppings.
- When icing is done drying store the cookie in an airtight container.
Notes
For this recipe, the dough only needs to chill about 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator since it is already rolled out. Using the wax paper is a great tip for rolling the dough because it eliminates the need to add extra flour to keep it from sticking. The sugar cookies are done baking when they are just barely set and not yet browned.
They’ll seem slightly undercooked right out of the oven but will firm up nicely once cooled. Once the cookies come out of the oven, only let them stay on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, or just until you’re able to carefully slide a spatula underneath the cookies without breaking them to transfer to a cooling rack.
While you are waiting for the cookie to cool you can make the icing.