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cut out sugar cookie dough

Basic Sugar Cookie Dough

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 22 reviews
  • Author: Erin Clarkson
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Total Time: 3 hours
  • Yield: 20 servings 1x
  • Category: Cookies
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: American

Description

This easy sugar cookie dough recipe is the perfect base sugar cookie recipe. It can be used to make a wide range of sugar cookie recipes, and is great to prepare in advance. Use it to make my easy roll-out sugar cookie recipe, which pairs perfectly with my 2 ingredient sugar cookie icing.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 180g granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg (50g not including shell), at room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
  • 310g  All-Purpose Flour
  • ¼  tsp baking powder
  • 3g (1 tsp) kosher salt (see notes above recipe for using other salt)


Instructions

  1. Place the butter and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream together on medium high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, stopping to scrape down the edges a few times to ensure the mixture is fully combined. This step can also be done in a large bowl with an electric hand mixer. 
  2. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well to combine. 
  3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. 
  4. Add to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. 
  5. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured piece of parchment paper. Flour the top lightly and pat gently into a rectangle shape with your hands. 
  6. Top with a second piece of parchment paper, and roll to a thickness of 0.25" / 6mm. 
  7. Transfer the dough, still between the two pieces of parchment paper, to a baking sheet. Chill in the fridge for at least two hours to allow the dough to firm up, and up to three days ahead. 
  8. Proceed with the recipe as written - such as my easy sugar cookie recipe.

Notes

This sugar cookie dough can be used as a perfect base recipe for sugar cookies, and you can flavour it any way that you like. Feel free to add in some lemon zest, or almond extract. I also played around with adding in sprinkles to make a funfetti situation - to make this, add 100g of rainbow sprinkles just after the dough is mixed. I use these rainbow sprinkles, if you're in NZ, these look like they might work!

You could also double the recipe and remove half the dough, then add mix-ins if you like if you were after two different doughs in one batch.