No Spread Sugar Cookies (Perfect Cut Out Cookies)

📋Ingredients

• All purpose flour - sift the flour to break any lumps.
• Granulated sugar (caster sugar) - fine sugar works best for this cookie recipe. Coarse white sugar will leave specks of sugar marks on the surface of your cookies after baking.
• Butter - I use salted butter to make these cookies. If you are using unsalted butter, add one eighth (⅛) teaspoon of fine salt when creaming the butter and sugar. For easy creaming, use room temperature butter (but not too soft that it is not able to hold its shape). Cold butter will be take a longer time to cream.
• Egg - Helps to bring the ingredients together into a soft dough.
• Vanilla extract - gives the cookies a lovely aroma and flavor.

*Refer to the recipe card below for full list of ingredients and exact quantities. For best results, use a digital kitchen scale where applicable*

Step 1: 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. Clear some space in your fridge to chill the cut out cookies.

Step 2: Mixing the Cookie Dough

Place the softened butter and granulated 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 of 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 flavor of your cookies to lemon, coffee, or orange, add in the orange or lemon zest or coffee at this stage and omit the vanilla extract (see the Substitution and Variation section above).

Finally, add the flour into the creamed 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.

Step 3: Chill the Dough

To stabilize the dough, form it into a ball, cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 15 minutes.

Note: 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 and wait 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.

Step 4: Roll and Cut the Cookies

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 (my cookies have about a quarter inch thickness). Remove the top piece of 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.

Step 5: Chill and Bake the 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.

💭FAQs