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Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

Cut out sugar cookies are one of the best Christmas sugar cookies recipe to make.Requiring just simple ingredients, these soft and chewy cookies are so much fun to make with the whole family! 

Christmas sugar cookies are part of our family holiday season traditions. This Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookie recipe is often the first thing I pull out of my recipe box to make. In fact, my kids think it’s the best sugar cookie recipe of all. The first time I made it with my boys’ help was when they were 2 and 4 years old!

Christmas sugar cookies in the shape of trees with green icing and sprinkles

Why you’ll love these Christmas sugar cookies

This cut out out sugar cookie recipe is a great recipe that makes a soft sugar cookies that can be easily frozen if desired.

The tender dough mixes up quickly and doesn’t need to be chilled before rolling.

I usually bake the whole batch, let them cool, and then freeze them between layers of waxed paper in airtight containers.

Once it’s time to serve them, I thaw out the baked rolled sugar cookies and mix up a small batch of icing for the amount I want to serve. It’s easy and so delicious.

Rolled sugar cookies - cut out sugar cookies

How to Make Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookies

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Supplies Needed for Soft & Tasty Cut Out Sugar Cookies:

cut out sugar cookie recipe

Rolled Sugar Cookies Ingredients:

  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. Baking Powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup Butter
  • 2 large Eggs, beaten
  • 1/3 cup Milk
  • 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
simple rolled cut out sugar Cookies with green icing placed on a china plate with red flowers
These rolled sugar cookies can be baked and frozen until you are ready to use them.

How to Make this Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

(A printable recipe card is located at the end of this post for your convenience.)

The first step of cut out sugar cookie recipe - mixing butter into the dry mixture with a pastry blender.
You can mix up this old fashioned rolled sugar cookie recipe without a stand mixer!

You’ll mix up this simple recipe in 2 seperate bowls.

1. In the first large bowl, mix together:

  • 4 cups flour,
  • 1 tsp. baking powder, and
  • 1/2 tsp. salt, 
  • Cut in 1 cup butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives.
a woman stirring an egg mixture in a glass mixing bowl
Stir together the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl.

2. In another bowl, mix together:

  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 1/3 cup milk,
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract,
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar, and
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
a woman pouring the egg mixture into the flour mixture
Add the liquid to the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.

4. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and stir gently.

woman kneading sugar cookie dough on a pastry cloth
I like using a pastry cloth when working with any type of dough. It helps the dough not to stick, and keeps my counters clean!

5. Flip the dough onto a lightly floured pastry mat, and knead it gently ~ just so it sticks together.

rolled sugar cookie dough balls on a pastry cloth

6. Divide  dough into 2 portions. Start with the first portion and roll dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness.

boys cutting out cookies 2

I use my Grandmother’s antique dough rolling pastry set (pictured above), but I’ve rounded up a whole list of top tools for dough rolling here.

Here is a video on tips for rolling out this sugar cookie dough:

7. Using your favorite cookie cutters, cut out whatever shapes you’d like.  We have stars and trees at our house…

boys cutting out sugar cookies

8. Place on prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. (Placing parchement paper on the baking sheets makes for easy clean up.)

sugar cookies cooling on baking racks

9. Bake cookies at 375 degrees for 5 minutes – or until very lightly golden brown.

Top Tip: The secret to soft and chewy old fashioned sugar cookies is to take them out before they start to brown. If they are too browned, they will turn crunchy!

10. Cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

iced cookies

Once completely cooled, ice with your favorite homemade frosting.

Here is my quick and easy homemade frosting for sugar cookies. Or, you could try a fun idea using marbled icing.

Yield:  About 4 dozen

sugar cookies

How should I store these cut out sugar cookies?

Store these sugar cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. However, I feel better always refrigerating or freezing mine until I’m ready to use them. 

To freeze sugar cookies, place them in an airtight container or heavy duty freezer bag, being careful to seperate each layer with wax paper or parchment paper to prevent them from sticking together. Store in the freezer for up to six months.

For Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies:

You can use this same sugar cookie recipe for all seasons! Just use whatever shaped cookie cutter matches the holiday. Heart shaped cookie cutters with pink icing make darling Valentine’s Day cookies. Another option is to make marbled heart sugar cookies. They’re so pretty!

Need more help with Christmas cookie making?

I’ve put together a recipe collection of Christmas cookie recipes to help you save time & stress. Click the button below for all the details!

SAVE TIME & STRESS!

CHRISTMAS COOKIES RECIPES COLLECTION

With a mix of traditional & trendy Christmas cookies, this recipe collection with pictures can help bring back the fun (& simple) traditions of Christmas baking.

For more Merry Christmas Season Recipes, you may want to check out these posts:

More Christmas Cookies Recipes:

Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

Old Fashioned Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

Yield: 4 dozen
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Additional Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

This old fashioned rolled sugar cookie recipe is the best cut out cookie recipe! The dough is easy to work & the cookies are soft & YUMMY!

Ingredients

  • 4 cups Flour
  • 1 tsp. Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp. Salt
  • 1 cup Butter
  • 2 Eggs, beaten
  • 1/3 cup Milk
  • 1 tsp. Vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups Sugar
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda

Instructions

  1. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender
  2. In another bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar, and baking so
  3. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and stir gently
  4. Flip the dough onto a lightly floured pastry mat, and knead it gently ~ just so it sticks together
  5. Divide into 2 portions and roll each portion out to about 1/2 inch thick.
  6. Using cookie cutters, cut out whatever shapes you’d like.  We have stars and trees at our house…
  7. Place on baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
  8. Bake for 5 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 375 degrees.The secret to soft and chewy old fashioned sugar cookies is to take them out before they start to brown. If they are lightly browned, they will turn crunchy!
  9. Cool completely on wire racks before icing.Step 10: Once completely cool, ice with buttercream icing with food coloring.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 48 Serving Size: 1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 100Total Fat: 4gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 95mgCarbohydrates: 14gFiber: 0gSugar: 6gProtein: 1g

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65 Comments

  1. Hi Rita!

    Sugar cookies are our family's favourite Christmas cookie as well. Our recipe is a little different, but the cookies look the same. We frost ours too, but put sprinkles on top.

    I love the pictures of your boys baking!

    Hugs,
    Heather

    1. I made these cookies, they are awesome! My whole family, friends, and work love them. They all could not believe how fluffy and soft they are. I’m definitely going to make more for Christmas and even Valentine’s Day.

      1. Love this recipe!!! Turned out perfect and very tasty. Have tried many recipes that did not work. Thank you for sharing!!

        1. Love this recipe but found it to be too sticky to handle so added about a cup and a half more flour and they turned out perfect. ❤️

    2. Cookie dough rolled 1/2 inch thick will not bake in 5 minutes. Dough spread badly for me. Sorry but best to stay with my tried and true recipe I usually use.

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  3. I had the same experience with having kids “help” me baking cookies. They do finally come back into the kitchen when the cookies are done baking! Where did you get your pastry mat?

    1. Hi Rene, The pastry mat and rolling pin cover that are pictured are actually my Mom’s! But, you can get pastry mat sets for rolling out dough on Amazon. They are now linked in the post for your convenience. I find they help keep the counter from getting quite so messy!

  4. I am seeing you add baking soda twice in the recipe. It would seem it should just go in with the flour but thought to ask. Thank you.

  5. I read it wrong three times! My apologies… I have just never added soda or powder to wet. Thanks and I am trying these now 🙂

      1. Hi Michelle, You do add the baking soda to the wet ingredients in this sugar cookies recipe. It sounds a bit strange, but it works!! Have fun baking!!

    1. Love the recipe – is it ok to freeze the dough or put in the fridge to do it later ?
      Thank you
      Happy Holidays !

    1. I made these cookies but I have to say baking 5 minutes is close to being raw dough. They are very tasty though. I’m having second thoughts of giving these as gifts because of being close to raw. Maybe it’s just my oven but I think I will bake for 7 minutes.

  6. Sorry may I ask the ? of butter. I’ve not made them yet but is it salted or unsalted? Because I don’t want to ruin them.

    1. In my opinion, if you’re going to use salted butter then you can eliminate adding salt to the recipe. 😁❤️

    2. Hi Cynthia, Since there is salt added to this sugar cookie recipe, I would use unsalted butter. That’s a great question!

  7. This looks like a wonderful recipe and something I must try! I loved seeing your boys in the pictures too 😊

  8. I know your recipe uses the pastry cutter to cut the butter into the dry ingredients and Ive tried this for otehr recipes and it didnt turn out well for those recipes. Could I just mix this recipe like my go to recipe with wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients to the wet? The recipe looks amazing and I just wanted to ask.

    1. Hi MidnightBaker,
      You’re question of asking whether there is an alternative method to cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter for these sugar cookies is a good one! I have never tried any other method than that, so I’m not sure how they would turn out. I do sometimes soften the butter slightly (or use room temperature butter) to make it easier to cut in, but if the butter were melted completely before adding in, I think the dough would become too sticky.

      Hope that helps, and happy sugar cookie baking!:)

      1. Hello I just made these cookies and they were amazing. Since I do not have a pastry cutter, I let the butter get close to room temperature so it wasn’t too soft, cut into cube with a butter knife, then smooshed it into the flour with a fork. It worked great for me! I love this recipe, definitely my go to for sugar cookies now!

    1. Hi Racheal, the question of whether you should freeze sugar cookies with or without icing is a very good one! All the research I’ve read says that it is recommended and ideal to freeze them without icing. However, in our house I frost them, let the icing set up, and then layer them in a Tupperware container with parchment paper or wax paper between the layers and then freeze them. We think they taste amazing!

  9. Also wondering about making the dough ahead, refrigerating it ,setting it out at room temperature, then rolling them out? Please let me know soon.

    1. Hi NN, Thank you for the question, “Can you refrigerate the sugar cookie dough ahead and then roll it out later?”
      Although I have never personally tried this method yet, it makes sense that in theory, and I believe it should work. I would advise to cover the dough well with plastic wrap, refrigerate it, and then when ready to use, bring it to room temperature by letting it sit on the counter, and then start rolling it out.
      Happy cookie making!

    2. Absolute love this recipe! Our cookies cut out and baked perfect. They are fluffy and delicious. I will say make sure you don’t leave your butter out too long. You want the butter room temp but after taking it out of fridge leave it out for about an hr. The butter should push in with your finger but not too soft. This ensures the cookies aren’t flat. This worked wonderfully for us. Thanks for the recipe!
      Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 🎄❤🙏

  10. I have same question regarding freezing the dough to use a few days later. Is this possible and if so how can you do this. Thank you in advance for any feedback. This recipe sounds amazing and want to try with my kids. 😊

    1. Hi Meg, thank you for your question about whether you can freeze this sugar cookie dough to use a few days later. To be honest, I’ve never tried that! This particular sugar cookies recipe is unique in that you can roll it out right away after you mix it up. The dough is much drier than other sugar cookies recipes (more like a pastry dough), so it isn’t necessary to refrigerate it before rolling it out. Many sugar cookies recipes require you to chill the dough for at least 2 hours before rolling it out. I found that this recipe worked well in that you can make it, roll it, and bake it all at the same time!

      I will have to experiment further to give you a definitive answer regarding freezing the dough first, but as I think through the process, If you wrap the dough well and freeze it in an airtight container and then thaw it completely at room temperature before rolling it, it should work!!

  11. In other recipes.i
    I have substituted monk fruit, swerve, allouse for the sugar. Frosting they also have powered sugar.

    1. Hi Sarah, for the sugar cookie dough, I use granulated sugar (also called white sugar). When it comes time to make the frosting, I used powdered sugar (also called confectioners’ sugar) for the frosting.

    1. Hi Jean, I have never experimented with gluten free flour in any of my recipes at this point, so I can’t give any input to that. But, perhaps someone else reading these comments can chime in if they have any recommendations for how to make this sugar cookie recipe with gluten free flour?

  12. I’m not sure what I did wrong but this dough was SO sticky and very hard to work with. I have it in the fridge now to see if that helps. How do you do your flour? I stirred, scooped and leveled mine. If you pack yours maybe that’s the issue? I looked over the recipe a few times and followed everything correctly.

  13. My dough was sticky until I gently kneaded it on the counter. Then I refrigerated the dough for an hour due to the way the butter was incorporated. This made the dough much easier to roll out and cut cookies.

    1. (I am replying to myself)

      I did wind up using the food processor. It came out well, even made adding color quick and easy.

      I like the texture to the dough for this recipe, most others I have tried require chilling the dough and chilled it’s both to sticky and to hard to roll out, this one rolled out nice and easy. Though they were not as sweet as expected. I think next time I am going to try adding half again as much sugar.

      I also didn’t roll mine a half inch thick, I don’t like my cookies that thick, I think I came in closer to 1/8 of an inch.

      Mine also took 6-7 min to bake, but that was probably because the cutouts spent the night in the fridge.

  14. I was excited to try this sugar cookie recipe. I try a new sugar cookie recipe every year, with hopes to find one that I would like. Now this will always be my favorite sugar cookie recipe. Here are the things I have done differently. I used a dough hook to mix the dough, it worked perfectly. I also added 1tsp of almond extract along with the vanilla extract. I liked the additional flavor. I did cut them thick and in Christmas shapes and baked them about 8 minutes.

  15. I love this sugar cookie recipe! I also add a teaspoon of almond extract to ours because there’s just something about that almond taste that makes me think Christmas!

  16. Do you think a gluten free version of this Christmas sugar cookie recipe will turn out okay (if I substitute gluten free all-purpose flour for the regular flour)?

  17. I love sugar cookies over the holidays! I have tried a lot of sugar cookies recipes that just didn’t hold up well to decorating but these are a huge hit!

  18. Do you have the frosting recipe for this somewhere? I have already made the cookies and they are wonderful. Used bob red mills 1:1 I just had to add little bit of flour conservatively when needing the dough and refrigerated a couple hours.

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