How to make classic sugar cookies
Basic, but never boring, the tender, buttery sugar cookie has an invitation to almost any celebration. This rendition can be a blank canvas for festive designs, or a vessel for bold flavours. Thick, glossy royal icing completes the look, and sprinkles are a joyful finishing touch.
ROLLING DOUGH AND CUTTING SHAPES
Too thin, and your cookies will turn into crackers. Too thick, and they will be doughy. Here are some tips to help you roll the dough to just the right thickness, and to cut cookies that will hold their shape.
Cold is best: Regardless of the shape you’re cutting, or the method you’re using (by hand, with a cutter, glass jar), you’ll want the dough to be chilled. If it gets too warm, it’ll be challenging to cut out clean shapes and transfer them to the baking sheet. If the dough starts to soften, put it back into the fridge to firm up.
Reach for a ruler: You want the dough to be about the thickness of a graham cracker, or no thinner than an eighth of an inch. Don’t worry about making it a perfect circle or rectangle.
Broad cookies are better canvases: A cute cookie cutter does not always make a cute cookie. That is particularly true of shapes with small, delicate features, which are prone to getting stuck in the cutters, burning in the oven or just breaking off. Shapes with a lot of surface area (circles, triangles, diamonds, stars) are your best bet. They bake more evenly and offer greater options for decorating. No cookie cutters? A wide-mouth glass jar or cup will do the trick. Or use a knife to cut diamonds (as seen above), squares or rectangles.
Cut as many as you can: Use your cutters to place the shapes as close to one another as possible in order to get the most out of your dough. Gather any scraps and reroll the dough, but do so no more than twice. After that, the dough will become overworked and tough.
TINTING THE ICING
When it comes to decorating sugar cookies, there’s nothing more classic than royal icing. Its pristine white finish is particularly elegant, and striking in its simplicity. But everything is a little more fun in colour.
To tint your icing, make one batch of royal icing, and divide it into smaller bowls. (One batch can yield up to three different colours.) Using a spoon or fork, mix in food colouring until you reach your desired shade. Cover with plastic wrap, with the cling film pressed directly on the surface, until ready to use.
For deep hues, you’ll need more food colouring than you think. Depending on the intensity, it’s possible to use half a bottle. Keep in mind that traditional food colouring contains a lot of liquid, so adding enough for that vibrant red can alter the viscosity of the icing. To preserve the consistency, add little to no water when making the icing, using the food colouring as the thinning liquid.
Gel food colouring can be a game changer here. (Betty Crocker makes some, but they are also widely available on Amazon.com and at professional baking stores.) The colour is more concentrated, and it contains virtually no liquid. A little will go a long way, and adding a lot won’t affect the viscosity.
PIPING WITH CONFIDENCE
You don’t need an art degree to create beautiful sugar cookies. Simple, clean lines, a minimalist’s dream, can have a lot of impact without a lot of fuss. All you need is royal icing and a pastry bag fitted with a small tip.
The equipment: Use any large reusable or disposable pastry bag (at least 10-inches long), with a small metal tip for precision. A tip with a round 1/16-inch opening is best for more detailed designs, but for most purposes, one with a standard 1/8-inch opening will serve you well.
If you’re an infrequent baker, a resealable plastic bag with a small (1/8- to 1/16-inch) hole cut out of the corner will do the trick.
Preparing the pastry bag: To ensure all the icing gets in (and not on) the bag, insert the bag, tip facing down, into a tall glass, and fold the top down over the glass. Alternatively, hold the bag with your less-dominant hand, and fold the top over your fingers. Spoon the icing into the bag, filling it about halfway. Be careful not to overfill the pastry bag, or the icing will spill out of the top. Pull up the top of the bag, and twist it where the icing meets the bag to close it off.
Piping lines: You can use the icing bag like a pen to draw lines, swirls or any other designs.
To pipe, hold the tip of the bag 1/4 inch above the cookie and about 1/8 inch away from the edge. The icing should be runny enough that you should not need to apply too much pressure, but it may be useful to practice on a plate or piece of parchment paper beforehand.
If there are air bubbles in the pastry bag, a few gaps in the line could appear when you are piping. You can always quickly fill them in; just make sure to do so before the icing sets.
Flooding the surface: To create a smooth, evenly frosted appearance, you’ll want to “flood”, or fill, the surface of the cookie with icing.
To begin, trace the outline of the cookie you’re decorating. This will serve as a sort of barrier: Think of this as a line you’re going to colour inside of. With the pastry bag, start on the outside and work inward, filling in the space as you go. The icing should spread a bit to fill in any gaps. If you spill a little over the side of the cookie, use a paper towel to clean the edges before the icing sets.
ADORNING WITH SPRINKLES
Sprinkles and dragées, which are oversized sprinkles that look like beads, provide all the holiday cheer you can imagine. Sprinkles can be applied to raw dough before baking or used on just-iced cookies; dragées can be applied only onto fresh icing.
Decorative sugars are another festive option. Sprinkling the dough with sanding sugar before baking is a great way to add colour and crunch. It’s coarser than regular sugar, and won’t melt once baked. Pearl sugar (which resembles pretzel salt) or Demerara sugar (similar in flavour to brown sugar, but with larger crystals) can also be used before baking, or sprinkled onto fresh icing.