Super soft cut-out sugar cookies decorated with an easy icing. These Christmas Cut-Out Sugar Cookies are so fun to decorate and perfect for the holidays!
This sugar cookie dough only takes about 10 minutes to mix together. And since there’s no dough chilling required, you can immediately roll out the dough, cut out your cookies, and bake them. Because let’s be honest, there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting 1-2 hours for cookie dough to chill. Especially when you have little ones who are more than ready to start decorating.
Since I wanted to keep these Christmas cookies as simple as possible, the icing is also incredibly easy. It takes just a couple minutes to mix up the icing and you can easily dye it any color to decorate your cookies. The best part? The icing dries hard, so you can stack these cookies too!
INGREDIENTS
For the cut-out sugar cookies:
- 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup All-Vegetable Shortening
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
For the icing:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract use clear for white icing
- 3-3.5 tablespoons milk use more or less as needed
- Food coloring
INSTRUCTIONS
To make the cookies:
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the Pillsbury BEST™ All Purpose Flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening and sugar until well combined. Mix in the egg, milk, and vanilla extract until fully combined.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined. The mixture will be a little crumbly at first but it will come together as you continue mixing it.
- Divide the dough in half. Roll out each half on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thick, then cut with 2 to 3-inch cookie cutters. Re-roll any scrap pieces of sugar cookie dough and cut out more cookies as needed. Place the cookies 2-inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
- Bake in separate batches at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until the tops of the cookies are set and very lightly browned.
- Cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
To make the icing:
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, corn syrup, vanilla extract, and milk (start with 3 tablespoons) until well combined. To test the icing, lift the whisk (or spoon) from the mixing bowl, you should still see the ribbons of icing that fall back into the bowl for a few seconds. If needed, add more milk to thin out the icing or add more powdered sugar to make it thicker.
- Separate the icing into mixing bowls and add food coloring as needed. If the icing becomes thinner because of the food coloring, add a little more powdered sugar until it has reached your desired consistency.
NOTES
*When measuring your flour, don’t scoop it out of the container with the measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour around, spoon it into your measuring cup, and level it off with the back of a knife.*I suggest using one Crisco baking stick for this recipe since it will give you the exact amount that you need. If you’re measuring out 1 cup of Crisco, make sure to fully pack it into your measuring cup.Feel free to make a second batch of icing if needed. I usually make two batches of icing so I have enough to decorate all of the cookies with different colors and designs.