No Spread Sugar Cookies - Best Recipe for Cut Out Cookies

This no spread sugar cookies recipe is the best sugar cookie recipe and is only one I use when making cut out, decorated cookies. I used this exact same recipe to my make Christmas wreath cookies, gorgeous snowflakes cookies, Easter egg cookies, fondant heart sugar cookies and chocolate heart sugar cookies for Valentine's Day.

Th recipe never fails me every single time and has the best texture for decorated cookies. – soft and buttery sugar cookies without being overly greasy and sweet and holds their shape so perfectly well.

The thing I like most about these cookies is that they don’t lose their shape when baking. One thing you will notice in this perfect sugar cookie recipe is that I do not use any raising agents - there is no baking powder or soda.

And the intention is to make sure the cookies do not rise. If they do, they will lose their original shape and so I prefer not to use any raising agents in my cookies. And because of this, this no spread sugar cookies recipe is perfect for making decorated cookies, in the sense that whatever size I put on my tray before it goes into the oven comes out perfectly in the exact same size and shape I put it in.

This really helps especially when I decorate my cookies with fondant and use the same cutter for cutting the cookie and the fondant. I am always able to get well-aligned sizes of the cookies and the fondant cut-outs without major adjustments and that really saves me a lot of time!

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How to Make

Ingredients

• All purpose flour

• Castor sugar

• Butter (salted)

• Egg

• Vanilla extract

Preparing the oven and the tray

• Start by preparing your baking tray. Line them with parchment paper or cookie sheets and pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

• While the oven is preheating, mix the no spread sugar cookie dough.

Mixing the dough

• Place the softened butter and castor sugar in a medium or large bowl. Beat these with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until they turn light and creamy. Suffice if the mixture turns creamy. Do not beat until it's fluffy.

• Next, add the whole egg and continue beating until it's well incorporated. Scrape the sides fo the bowl so that the ingredients are all well combined. Again, do not over beat the mixture. Suffice if the egg traces are no longer visible.

• Add in vanilla extract and give the mixture a quick mix.

• At time point, if you would like to change the flavour of your cookies to lemon, coffee, or orange, add in the orange or lemon zest or coffee at this stage. Omit the vanilla essence.

• Finally, add in the flour into the wet ingredients. You can add this all at once or in batches, both ways are fine. Mix on low speed the dough until it comes together.

Chilling the dough

• To stabilize the dough, form it into a ball, cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes is all you need. If you keep it too long in the fridge, it will become too hard to work with and you would need to leave it at room temperature for it to soften before rolling and cutting it.

• For best results and perfectly cut out, no spread sugar cookies, the dough should be chilled until its firm but still workable.

Rolling and cutting out

• Divide the dough into sections so that it is easier to work with. Place it between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll with the guide of 2 dowel rod on either side for even thickness. Remove the top layer of the parchment paper and cut the rolled dough into desired shapes with cookie cutters.

• Lift the cutout sugar cookies and place them onto your cookie sheet or baking sheet. Since the cookies do not spread, there is no need to put them too far apart. Suffice if you leave about 1 cm gap between each of the cut-out cookies for easy handling.

Chilling the cut out cookies

• Once the tray is full, pop it into the fridge again to allow the cut out no spread cookie dough to chill and firm up. Anytime between 15-20 minutes is sufficient.

• Remove the tray from the fridge and bake cookies for about 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) until they have turned golden brown. Your actual time would very much depend on the size and thickness of your cookies. I prefer my cookies to have crisp edges, so I cook them for about 10 to 15 minutes. If you prefer soft, chewy cookies, take them out of the oven slightly earlier.

Storing and decorating

• Remove cookies from the oven and cool them on a cooling rack or wire rack. Let them cool down completely before frosting or decorating them.

• Keep the cookies in an airtight container.

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Notes

Cookie flavor can be varied

• This recipe is for vanilla-flavored no spread sugar cookies. You can use it to create different flavored cookies. See the notes in the recipe card below on how to adjust the ingredients for lemon, chocolate, orange, and coffee-flavored no spread sugar cookies.

Cookie dough can be chilled up to 5 days

• The dough refrigerates well, not only after mixing but also after rolling and cutting. The last time I made these cookies, I refrigerated the dough for one day. The next day, I rolled and cut the cookies out, placed them on a tray and only baked them 4 days later. The results, absolutely delicious cookies!

Chill the cut out cookies for perfect results

• This is the key step to making no spread sugar cookies.
• To make sure the cookies do not spread and loose their shape when baking, place the cutout cookies onto a tray and refrigerate them until they are firm, before popping them into the oven. That way, the cookies will come out in the exact shape you put them in.

Ensure cookie thickness is consistent

• To ensure you can uniform thickness for all your cookies, place dowel rods on either side of the dough and roll it with the rolling pin resting on the sticks on either side of the rolling pin. That way, the thickness of the rolled cookies will be uniform all over and so would your cookies, after cutting them out.

Adjust the bake time for larger and thicker cookie

• If your no spread sugar cookies are large and thick, you would typically need to increase your time.
• Similarly, if you make smaller cookies, reduce the time accordingly.

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Like this recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Snowflakes Sugar Cookies
• Christmas Wreath Cookies
• Gingerbread Boys and Girls Cookie Tutorial
• Chocolate Heart Cookies for Valentine's Day
• Daisy Cookies - Flower Cookies with Royal Icing
• Heart Sugar Cookies with Fondant
• Matcha Cookies with White Chocolate
• Strawberry Jam Cookies (Sandwich Cookies)

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my no spread sugar cookie recipe. And while you are at it, don’t forget to read up my notes just above. The notes will help you make the best no spread sugar cookies every single time!

And that's pretty much my no spread sugar cookies recipe.

Happy baking 🙂