I’ve posted a couple of sugar cookie posts on this site, but I am asking you to disregard all of them and bookmark this one. (Ok, except maybe for the decorative ones, because they’re different.) I needed to make some cookies this past weekend for the crew on a commercial shoot, same as I did last year when I made chocolate chip muffins and bran muffins. Since I was making the muffins again, I thought chocolate chip cookies would be overkill. When I figured sugar cookies would be a crowd pleaser, even I didn’t know how right I would be.
What drew me to this recipe on Allrecipes.com was the description that said, “I love sugar cookies that are crisp on the outside and very chewy on the inside…” That is what I look for in a perfect sugar cookie. I used to buy some in my high school cafeteria, Otis Spunkmeyers to be exact, and I always remembered the nommy chewiness that could have possibly been misconstrued as not quite being baked all the way. (Maybe they weren’t actually baked all the way, but still – they’re a lot better than I’m making them sound.)
Anyway, I really have searched for that same flavor and texture in a cookie for ages, and now I’ve found it. Do yourself a favor and make these immediately. You will win friends and influence people for sure.
The original recipe called for more sugar than I used, but I figure when you roll a cookie in sugar to decorate it, you don’t need as much in the dough itself. Another thing I noted was the original recipe said it made 30 cookies, so I would imagine they were some pretty ginormous cookies since I ended up with about twice as many good-sized cookies.
SUGAR COOKIES – makes about 5 dozen
- 2+3/4 cups AP flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1+1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temp
- 1+1/2 cups white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4-1/2 cups white, coarse, or colored sugar for decorating
Preheat your oven to 350F and line some cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, mix together your dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, and salt.
Cream together your butter and white sugar until they’re light and fluffy. Then, add the eggs one at a time and beat until just combined. Add in your vanilla with the 2nd egg. Make sure you scrape down the side of the bowl.
Adding a little at a time, stir in your dry ingredients. Make sure you don’t over-mix, but make sure to get all the flour incorporated.
Next, using a spoon or cookie scoop, dig out enough dough to roll into a ball about the size of a quarter. The original recipe says walnut, but I decided to go slightly smaller to amass more cookies. Roll the ball in your hands to get it rounded, then roll it in your decorative sugar (I used raw cane sugar).
The dough is tacky, so it’s a little easier to drop the ball into the ball and shake and shimmy it a bit to cover it more before rolling it around with your fingers. Basically, coat it in sugar without using your fingers at first because the dough will stick to you. Maybe a spoon will work too, but why would I use something logical like that?
Place your cookies a couple of inches apart on the sheet as they will spread while baking. On my larger sheets I was able to fit 4×4, but I’m a daredevil like that.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until a light golden color at the edges. Pull the sheets from the oven and let the cookies cool a bit before removing them to a rack to cool completely. You’ll notice, as I did, that your cookies puff up while baking and slowly deflate while cooling. This might look really drastic as it’s happening, but it’s perfectly normal. I tried to capture it on camera, but it doesn’t look as obvious in the photos as it will in your kitchen.
I cannot stress enough how insanely good these cookies were. I had my first slew of insults in a while; being called the devil, evil, a dirty whore, you name it. It felt good to be back in business, ya know? Our director got home from the shoot that evening and said his wife laughed at him when he asked if there were any cookies left.
Guess what, these have for sure earned a 5 on the Evil Rating Scale. No one could have just one, including yours truly, and they’re slap-your-mama good!
Don’t make me beg, just make these.
My Baking Empire 
These are the best! My family LOVES them. Make them almost every other day for my GRANDE GRANDSON!