I guess I can’t really call these “Sarah’s Sugar Cookies” as the recipe is really my moms, but those of you that know me, know me for my sugar cookies– hence the title. But credit is due to my mother, she is really the sugar cookie pro—and taught me the art of making sugar cookies!

If you haven’t had the pleasure of indulging in my sugar cookies (or my moms), you’re life is not yet complete. Haha. I don’t want to brag or anything, but they’re awesome. Even Aubry who doesn’t like sugar cookies, loves them. They are soft, sweet and delicious! My one-year-old just can’t handle it while I write this post, he knows how good they are and at this very moment is pulling on me yelling “COOS! COOS!” I know baby, I want some too.

You can duplicate my sugar recipe just in time for your spring parties! I invested in a great little box ‘o cookie cutters from Wilton (you can get them from Amazon here ) and I love it, I have over 101 shapes–including every letter and number, so it gives me lots of options!

The secret to this recipe is: PREPARATION. You will need to refrigerate your dough overnight (or in the freezer for 2 hours) so I like to make it the night before I want to bake the cookies. You’ll also need time to soften your butter and cream cheese, so account for that too.

Here goes! At the end of this post, you will finds a PDF file with a recipe card for your printing pleasure:

Sarah’s Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

1 Cup unsalted butter (softened to room temperature)

2 Cups granuatled sugar

2 Eggs

2 tsp. vanilla (don’t skimp and use imitation, that’s no good)

¼ Cup milk

4 Cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt (skip this if you had to use salted butter—they’re sugar cookies, not salt cookies)

I like to get out my butter a few hours before I start baking to soften it to room temperature. You can microwave it so its soft, but it’s not ideal (you don’t want to melt it, it changes the consistency).

Cream together butter and sugar. I like to mix these two for a while—really well, making sure there are no lumps of butter.

Then add the eggs. Mix.

Then add the vanilla.

Use pure vanilla, it’s just that much yummier than imitation. Costco has it for a pretty good deal.

Don’t forget to add in your milk!

Make sure all wet ingredients are mixed well, with no chunks of butter.

Set wet mixture aside.

In a separate large bowl, mix together dry ingredients:

Flour.

Baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Mix dry ingredients well with a fork.

Then add the wet mixture to the dry.

Mix all ingredients together, forming one cohesive dough.

Then comes the magic part: place dough in a covered container in the refridgerator overnight, OR in the freezer for 2 hours. Why? Can’t I just skip this step? NO! In order for the dough to roll out properly, you need it to stiffen. If you try and roll it out fresh from mixing, your dough will be thin and your cookies will be hard. So please, I beg you, don’t skip this part!

Once your dough has stiffened:

Make sure to clean off your surface where you will be rolling out your dough.

Lightly dust area with flour.

Take out about ¼ of your dough, shape into a ball, flatten, and roll out with a rolling pin.

Since your dough is stiff, you’re going to have to use your muscles to roll it out into a nice flat surface.

The key here is to roll out your dough EVENLY. (my mom never let me do this part as a kid, she didn’t trust me. I thought that was pretty mean until now, I totally understand, I don’t trust anyone else to roll out my dough either!) I like to roll it out a bit, then get down at eye level to the dough and just run my hand over it checking for unevenness. If your dough is uneven, your cookies will be uneven—causing them to be crunchy on one side, and soft on the other…that’s just annoying.

So once you have a nice, beautiful even sheet of cookie dough, have at it! Get a fun cookie cutter, dust it in flour and cut away. Make sure to press pretty firmly, all the way to the bottom of your surface. Then, using a metal spatula, scrape the cookie shape off using one swift motion (so as not to lose the shape of the cookie).

Place cookies onto a non-stick cookie sheet.

Bake at 325 for 9 minutes.

Check your cookies after 9 minutes. This is the other trick to the recipe: your cookies will NOT look done on the top.

What you want to do is flip one cookie over and check the BOTTOM of it. If the bottom is slightly golden, then you’re done. If the tops of the cookies are golden, you’ve cooked them too long…sorry. It’s okay, all is not lost, your cookies will just be little crunchier. Now I will say that based on where you live, and your oven, you may need to adjust the time slightly. Mine even varies depending on the day, weird. Sometimes I even start out at 7 minutes, just so I don’t risk over cooking them.

Transfer cookies immediately to a paper towel (if you leave them on the sheet, they will continue to cook).

Once you’ve baked all your cookies, make your frosting, then go read a book, paint your toe nails, or watch the latest episode of The Bachelor while your cookies cool. Please don’t frost them warm! This will cause your frosting to melt and get gooey and just plain weird looking on your cookies.

Cream cheese frosting:

½ Cup butter softened

8 oz. cream cheese softened.

1 Tbs. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

¾ bag powdered sugar

Cream together butter and cream cheese.

Add in milk, and vanilla. Make sure there are no chunks of butter or cream cheese.

Add in powdered sugar a little bit a time. Add in more or less depending on how stiff you want your frosting.

To color, use Wilton icing colors . These are the best and will produce nice, vibrant colors.

Frost your cookies using a knife, or to get really fancy, use a piping bag.

Sprinkle, decorate and enjoy!

Download the recipe card here!

Try out my cookies and let me know what you think! What’s your favorite sugar cookie shape? I love hearts, flowers and Mickey Mouse cookies!