Alice's Rolled Sugar Cookies

These are the cut-out cookies you want when you actually need shapes. Stars, hearts, gingerbread men, holiday trees. The dough holds its edges through baking instead of puffing into blobs the way many sugar cookie recipes do.

The combination of butter and shortening is intentional. Butter is for flavor. Shortening, with its higher melting point and zero water content, is what keeps the cookies from spreading. Use all butter and you’ll watch your snowflakes turn into snowmen.

The long chill (at least 3 hours, overnight is better) is the most skipped step and the most important. Cold dough rolls without sticking, holds detail in the cutter shapes, and bakes with crisp edges instead of puffy ones. Don’t rush it.

Rolling at ⅛ inch thick is precise for a reason. Thicker cookies bake unevenly and the centers stay raw. Thinner and they burn before the centers set.

Pro Tips

• Roll between two sheets of parchment instead of dusting with flour. Less added flour means more tender cookies.
• Re-chill the dough scraps before re-rolling. Warm dough re-rolled gets tougher each time.
• Bake just until the edges are barely golden. The centers will look slightly underdone but they finish setting on the sheet.
• Decorate with royal icing for that bakery-window glossy finish, or simple confectioners’ sugar glaze and sprinkles for kid-friendly cookies.

Variations

• Add 1 teaspoon of almond extract along with the vanilla for a more interesting flavor.
• Brush unbaked cookies with milk and dust with sanding sugar for a sparkly finish.
• Sandwich two cookies with a thin layer of jam or buttercream for elegant filled cookies.