Decorated cookies are usually bland, overly sweet, and terrible, but I’ve been drafted into producing some for a fundraiser. These are supposed to be the kind that are a few inches across and elaborately iced, I guess, so they have to be pretty sturdy.
Can anyone recommend a recipe for tasty cookies with an easy-to-work-with dough? Of course there are many on the internet, but I really want to make cookies that are worth eating, not just pretty and ending up in the trash after a few bites.
This is my favorite. It’s sturdy, doesn’t spread so your cutter details don’t melt away, and it tastes good.
Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
1 c sugar
1 c butter
3 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 c flour
Combine everything but the flour until well mixed. Add the flour and mix until just combined. Divide into thirds and shape into discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Let rest for 5-10 minutes before rolling out. Roll out into 1/4 inch thickness, cut, and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-10 minutes or until the edges are just light brown.
Remember to bake same sized cookies together, so if you are doing some large and some small cookies you will want to bake them on separate pans. Small cookies need less time than big ones and keeping them separate means you don’t have to compromise on whether to over bake the little ones or under bake the big ones.
I’ve done THESE and they came out tasty, but I tend to think that roll-out cookies are way more trouble than they are worth.
I started with the Martha Stewart recipe for sugar cookies, but I’ve modified it for my tastes:
4 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks (1/2 lb total) salted butter
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Makes 3-4 dozen cookies
Follow the prep instructions that Martha gives, although I don’t refrigerate the dough and I have not had any issues.
Most important tip, I think, is to keep a sifter of flour on-hand as you work the dough. You’ll sprinkle the rolling surface as well as the the surface of the cookie dough with a light coating of flour to keep it from sticking as you work with it.
I use Betty Crocker whipped vanilla icing and either pipe or spread it depending on the cookie design and how sweet I want them.
The cookies will be plenty sturdy as long as you roll them out to be about a 1/4 inch in thickness. I’ve made Texas longhorn cookies and those long horns do just fine at 1/4 inch.
Use minimal icing if baking for adults, more icing if baking for kids.
Don’t forget to sample the dough while working it, or if don’t like to eat raw eggs, try one after baking but before icing. This will help guide you on what you want to do with the icing to get the flavor right.
Happy baking!
This one turned out pretty well, but I’m very interested in Miss Woodhouse’s cream cheese sugar cookie recipe! I’ll try that one next. I like decorating so I enjoy making rolled cookies.
Thanks to all for the help!
I think I’ll make a little test batch of those cream cheese ones, because I used to have a baby sitter who made some amazing cream cheese cookies.
Maybe I’ll do some of each, as I am supposed to make a hundred cookies, although I carefully did not commit to that!
I’d love to know how the cream cheese ones turn out for you!
I haven’t done it in a while, but I used to decorate old-fashioned shortbread. Easy, sturdy, and much better than those rocklike “sugar” cookies.
Well, the good news is that the cream cheese cookies were delicious. I substituted lemon extract for the almond, as I am not fond of almond, and I ended up using a substituting a smidge more cream cheese than it said for an equal amount of butter, due to not having sufficient thawed butter on hand.
Unfortunately, they were not as sturdy as I had hoped and, realizing they’d never hold up to the rigors of icing and transport, we were compelled to eat them all ourselves.
The fragility could be from the ounce or two of cream cheese/butter substitution, but they were fantastic anyway.
I ended up making an easy, but impressive-looking, batch of Chocolate Crackle Cookies for the fundraiser and weaseling out of icing entirely.
Thanks for the great recipe, Miss Woodhouse!