From Scratch Sugar Cookies
 
 
They can be made whenever the mood strikes (read : No Chilling required!) and yield the most delicious, chewy, soft sugar cookies ever.
Author:
Serves: 2
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies Dough
  • 1&1/4 cups + 2 Tbsp unbleached all purpose flour
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp baking powder
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, softened just enough
  • ¾ cups white granulated sugar
  • ½ egg, stirred
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 1-2 Tbsp milk (any fat content)
  • Easy Icing Recipe (DOUBLE THE ICING RECIPE if going to decorate all 2 dozen cookies)
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2-3 Tbsp water
  • 2 tsp light corn syrup
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • Food coloring (I used red, green)
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 375F.
  2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Keep it aside.
  3. In a large bowl or bowl of stand mixer if using, cream butter & sugar until smooth. Beat in the stirred egg and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and keep stirring. Add enough milk to make the dough come together, just soft enough but not wet.
  4. Gather the dough on a floured surface. If it feels too sticky, add few tsps of flour, starting by 1 tsp at a time and kneading very little. Divide the dough into 2 balls and chill them for about 30 minutes. Roll out the dough to desired thickness. I like rolling the dough to a medium thickness (Not too thin and not too thick) to get a chewy soft cookies but it's totally about preference. Cut out desired shapes using cookie cutters and transfer the cut out cookies to a lined baking sheet. Bake cookies by rotating the tray halfway for about 6-8 minutes depending on your cookie thickness. I suggest keeping an eye and as soon as you see the top getting little bit golden, take them out. (You can bake just 1 cookie as I do initially to test and get a hang of your oven!). It always helps. Learnt after burning 2 whole batches of these cookies (I ended up baking the cookies for a total of 6 minutes with rotating halfway to achieve the perfect chewy soft cookie texture). Let them cool on baking tray for few minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack for cooling completely.
  5. Icing the cookies.
  6. In a disposable glass or bowl (if using or regular), add white powdered sugar. To it add water 1 tbsp at a time and keep stirring. Add corn syrup and vanilla extract and stir again until smooth. If you feel the icing is too thick, you can add more water slowly. If too thin, add powdered sugar.
  7. Divide the icing in 2-3 disposable glasses if going to add colors. Add your desired color in the icings and mix well. Remember that a drop of food coloring goes a long way so start by adding a drop, mixing really well and to reach your desired color move ahead by adding color drop by drop.
  8. To apply icing on the cookies, I find it easiest to do in ziplock bags. As shown in the picture above, in a clean glass stuff one corner of the zip lock bag and add the icing. Twist the bag around that corner and cut a very very small hole on that corner using scissors. Make sure the hole is not too large or it will be hard to make outlines.
  9. Decorate the cookies. I like making outlines first and then filling or flooding the cookies by squeezing some icing in the center of the cookie and spreading it using back of a spoon.
  10. Decorate with sprinkles if using.
  11. Let the icing set overnight. No need to cover the cookies. Next day once icing is all set, store the cookies in an airtight container.
Notes
Sugar cookie recipe was adapted from Food Network website.
If you are in no mood to make homemade icing, store bought icing serves the purpose and you don't even have to wait for the icing to set.
I found that these could be eaten after one hour of decorating as icing begins to set, so need to worry if you have guests arriving. These will taste AMAZING.
Recipe by Naive Cook Cooks at https://www.naivecookcooks.com/from-scratch-sugar-cookies-with-easy-icing/