25 Days of Christmas Cookies – The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird and her bff’s get together every year right before Christmas and make a bunch of cookie platters for all of their teachers.  Some years they’ve made as many as 12 different kinds of cookies all in one day.

But this year The Girl asked if we would make a few batches ahead of time so they would have more time to decorate and spend less time actually baking the cookies.

So this morning, I went ahead and whipped up a batch of our favorite sugar cookie dough and made 8 dozen sugar cookies in various shapes for them.  Once they cool down properly, I’ll store them in the freezer until the day of the cookie party.

Here is our tried and true sugar cookie recipe we use year after year.

Ingredients

4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup {2 sticks} unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk {I used 2%}
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.

Mix the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together with a electric mixer until smooth.  Gradually add about 1/2 of the flour mixture, then the 1/2 cup of milk, then the remaining flour mixture until everything is mixed together.

Divide dough into quarters, wrap in Saran Wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out cookie dough on to a floured surface with a rolling pin to 1/4-inch thick. Cut out cookies with your favorite cookie cutters,* place on a lined baking sheet {I use Silpats}* and bake for 6 -7 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  Decorate or eat plain.