Soft Cut Out Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

The easiest, soft cut out sugar cookies you’ll ever make! Not only do they taste great with hints of vanilla and almond but they hold their shape when baking and are the perfect canvas for piped buttercream or royal icing decorations.

I’ve been making these cookies for years and they never fail me! It takes only a few minutes to prep the dough, an hour to chill (this is critical), then you’re rolling, cutting and baking!

How to Make the Perfect Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

• Unsalted Butter
• Cream Cheese – the secret ingredient to keeping these cookies soft!
• Granulated Sugar
• Large Egg
• Vanilla Extract
• Almond Extract
• All-purpose Flour
• Baking Soda
• Salt

Method:

Have all ingredients at room temperature to make the mixing process quick and smooth. Begin by creaming together the softened butter and cream cheese. Add in the granulated sugar and continue mixing on a medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Mix in the egg and both extracts. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and mix again.

Add in the dry ingredients all at once, flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix on a low speed until the dough is evenly combined and there are no dry spots remaining. Divide the dough in half and flatten to about 1 inch in thickness. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or up to overnight.

Roll out the chilled dough on a lightly floured work surface, until it is 1/4″ thick. Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out various shapes. Place onto a lined baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes (for roughly 3-4 inch sized cookies). If you have larger or smaller cookie shapes you’ll need to adjust the baking time accordingly, adding or reducing the bake time based on size.

Let’s Chat about Royal Icing

Making royal icing is rather simple. Place all ingredients into a bowl and whisk until icing is smooth and everything is incorporated. The somewhat tricky part can be getting the desired consistency of the icing. To do this you’ll gradually add a small amount of water at a time and whisk until you’ve achieved the stiffness or pourability you want.

My preference is to have the icing drizzle off of the whisk in a slow but steady stream. The icing should leave a ribbon behind but smooth itself out within 10-15 seconds. This is the consistency I prefer to decorate with, as it is between a flooding consistency and a thicker border piping consistency. It does the job of both without needing to create multiple thicknesses of icing.

Now, depending on how you like to decorate sugar cookies you many look for a different consistency to your icing. Sweetopia has a great post going over all of the royal icing consistency basics and different uses for each one. Read the post here if you want to learn more.

Decorating with Royal Icing

My best advice for decorating with royal icing is not to overthink it! Just have fun and keep in mind that the cookies will taste delicious no matter how the icing looks! 🙂

But here a few ideas to get you started:

• Use multiple colors of icing to make your cookies pop!
• Add sprinkles to the icing while it is still wet to adhere.
• Practice the “wet-on-wet” icing technique by layering on a second color or icing to your cookies while the first layer is still wet. The second layer should meld into the first so the surface remains flat and smooth.
• Alternatively, try piping over a layer of already dried royal icing to create dimension and 3D details.
• To place two or more colors next to each other without them blending together, pipe the outline & filling of one color and allow to dry for 5-10 minutes. Then go back and pipe the outline/filling of the second colored icing. Repeat as needed. (See the wreath and/or santa mittens/stocking cookies for an example of this.)

Check out More Holiday Cookie Ideas:

• Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
• Dark Chocolate Peppermint Macarons
• Soft Baked Gingerbread Cookies
• Ginger Molasses Crinkle Cookies
• White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

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