This recipe may be one of the best things we have ever developed.
This sugar cookie recipe is easy to make, very forgiving, and has the tastiest, buttery mouthfeel. Once you’ve mastered this recipe, you can use it as a base for almost any Christmas cookie recipe. Don’t believe us?
Every single cookie in this box below was made using our sugar cookie recipe as a template.
Pictured above: You have cherry jam sandwich cookies, matcha pinwheel cookies, checkerboard cookies, pistachio swirls, peanut butter and jelly marshmallows, oreo chocolate, and a Neapolitan (sweet potato, taro, and coconut) cookie.
Mastering the template
This recipe is surprisingly easy to perfect. Once you’ve tried the original version a couple of times, you’ll be ready to customise it with your own twists. Why should you try it?
- No machine needed: Unless you’re baking for a crowd, there’s no need for a mixer. Softened butter can be easily whipped by hand, making it a fuss-free process. I prefer using a metric scale for accuracy, but I’ve also included cup measurements for convenience.
- Quick & easy: With some basic prep of ingredients, the dough comes together in under 10 minutes, making it ideal for a last-minute bake.
- Reroll-friendly: This dough is forgiving. You can reuse scraps to create marbled patterns or fresh shapes. Just avoid overworking the dough, as repeated rerolling can make the cookies tough. Stick to rerolling scraps only once for the best texture.
- No spread or browning: The recipe includes freezing the cookies at multiple stages, ensuring they don’t spread or lose shape in the oven. The result? Perfectly baked cookies that look as good as they taste.
- Tasty & eggless: Buttery with a melt-in-your-mouth texture, this recipe caters to eggless baking. Adjust the bake time for a crispier or softer texture to suit your preference.
- Storage-friendly: The dough freezes beautifully. You can freeze it after mixing or even after cutting out shapes. For best results, freeze the cut shapes for 30 minutes until firm, then store them in a zip-lock bag. These can last up to a month in the freezer and bake perfectly straight from frozen.
Customisations
Once you’ve have the original recipe down, you’ll quickly realise that you can alter this to create pretty much any flavour sugar cookie. Here are some of our faves:
Colours
Add different gel colours according to the theme you want. This recipe does not darken the cookie a lot, which means that most colours brown little in the oven and bake true to the colour you use.
Flavours
This sugar cookie recipe is very forgiving. You can add multiple flavourings and adjust the texture using milk or flour. Some customisations I like to do is:
- Dried powders: Replace 1-2 tbsp of flour with powdered flavourings such as matcha, sweet potato powder, beetroot powder, cocoa powder, and more. Based on the potency of the flavour you use, substitute out flour accordingly.
- Pastes: Add 1-2 tbsp of pastes such as Nutella and nut butters. This may loosen the consistency of the cookie, so they will spread more in the oven. A way to combat this is to increase the flour by 1-2 tbsp, or removing the coconut oil.
- Toppings: Adding toppings to your sugar cookies can add textures that help it set apart and create variety in a cookie box. Use toppings such as mini-oreos, crumbled biscoff biscuits, Parle-G, pretzels, marshmallows, and more. You can get creative with toppings that match your cookie flavour, just make sure they won’t burn when baking in the oven
- Fillings: You don’t need to add flavours before baking, you can also add fillings to your cookies and create sandwiches. Some ideas can include your favourite jam, biscoff paste, caramel, lemon curd, and more. Again, go with what you have and what makes sense for your cookie flavour. You can even make ice-cream sandwiches and put your favourite ice cream in the middle.
Patterns
Alongside colour, you can also play along with patterns on your cookies. This can be either in form of a patterned rolling pin, or a pattern stamp. Before you use these tools, make sure you refrigerate your rolled out cookie sheet as well as your stamping tool to ensure there is no sticking.
If you don’t have any tools or stamps, but still want to create shapes and patterns, you can also play with a variety of shapes and colours to mould your ideal cookie. Here are 3 examples below:
- Pinwheel cookie, made by rolling together 3 sheets of cookie colours and and cutting across the section
- Checkerboard cookie, made by rolling 4 logs of criss-cross colours
- Smashed cookie, made by rolling together 3 small cookie balls together and smushing
Icing
This cookie is a great base for icing. The recipe is neutral enough to take frosting, and you can create so many fun patterns. For details on how to create the best royal icing and get your design perfect, refer to the Ultimate Royal Icing guide here.
The Ultimate Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (180g) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup 115g butter, softened
- 1/2 cup (100g) caster sugar
- 1 tbsp dahi / yoghurt
- 1 tsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large bowl, cream your butter and sugar with a whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy.
- Add in the yoghurt, vanilla extract, and coconut oil.
- Sieve in your dry ingredients and slowly fold them in, using a spatula. The mixture will be like wet sand.
- Shape this into a rectangle and wrap in cling film, chill for 30 minutes until the dough is firm.
- Once your dough has firmed, roll it out to 1/4 inches thickness between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper. If you don't have baking paper, you can try using flour, but don't use a lot or the consistency will change.
- Shape your cookies: If you are cutting cookie shapes, lightly flour your knife or cookie cutter, and cut out cookie shapes. Remove the outside parts of the cut cookie and carefully pick up the main shape using a spatula or offset knife.
- Transfer the cut cookies to a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze the cut cookies for 30 min, until it is rock hard to the touch. In the meantime, heat your oven to 180C.
- Bake your cookies from frozen for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges of the cookie are just starting to turn slightly golden brown. If you like a crispier cookie, you can add a minute. Let your cookies harden at room temp for at least 30 minutes before decorating with icing
