Classic roll-out cut-out sugar cookies on a baker's-percentage ratio, sturdy enough to hold their shape and take icing while staying tender.
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About this recipe
A cut-out sugar cookie has a narrow job to do well: it has to hold the shape you cut, stay flat and sturdy enough to ice and decorate, and still bite tender rather than hard. This ratio gets there with restraint. A moderate amount of butter and sugar keeps the cookie rich without making it spread and lose its edges, just a little baking powder gives barely enough lift to keep the crumb from going tough, and a single egg brings the structure that lets a thin cut shape survive the oven. That is the whole balance — enough fat and sugar for flavor and tenderness, not so much that the snowflake bakes into a blob.
The method matters as much as the ratio. I cream the butter and sugar first, which works in tiny air pockets and gives the baked cookie a fine, even crumb instead of a coarse one. Then the dough goes cold: firms the butter so the dough rolls cleanly without sticking and the cut shapes keep their crisp edges in the oven instead of slumping. Roll to an even thickness — a couple of rolling-pin guide rings help — so every cookie bakes at the same rate. Thickness and bake time are also your texture dial: rolled thicker and pulled a touch early, these stay chewy; rolled thinner and baked a minute or two longer, they crisp up.
Gluten-free works for cut-outs. A 1:1 cup-for-cup blend (the kind that already includes xanthan gum) drops in directly, with one adjustment: give the dough a longer chill, since GF doughs roll and crack more easily when warm, and the extra cold makes them behave. Flour your rolling surface with the same blend rather than wheat flour.
The ratio takes variations easily. A half teaspoon of almond extract, alongside or in place of some of the vanilla, gives the classic bakery sugar-cookie flavor. Citrus zest — lemon or orange — rubbed into the granulated sugar brightens the whole batch. For decorating, royal icing dries hard and crisp for detailed piped designs that stack and ship, while a simple powdered-sugar glaze is faster and sets to a soft shine. And remember the thickness dial: thicker and shorter bake for chewy, thinner and longer for crisp.
At a glance
At its default setting, this Sugar Cookies recipe makes 24 rolls at about 30g each — about 720g of batter in total. In baker's percentage that breaks down to 296g AP flour (100%), 172g Unsalted butter (58%), 178g Granulated sugar (60%), 59g Large eggs (20%), 8.9g Vanilla extract (3%), 3.0g Baking powder (1%), and 3.0g Fine sea salt (1%). Change the rolls or enter a target batter weight in the calculator and every amount rescales to match, in grams or ounces.
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720g
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Step-by-step method
The straightforward cut-out method. Cream the butter and sugar for a fine, even crumb, beat in the egg and vanilla, then mix in the dry. The dough has to chill before it rolls, which makes this a two-stage afternoon rather than a single sitting — but the chill is what keeps the cut shapes sharp. Roll to an even thickness, cut, and bake just until the edges barely color.
A flat disk chills faster and rolls more evenly than a ball. The dough keeps in the fridge a few days, or freezes for longer.
Cool on the pan a few minutes, then move to a rack and let them cool completely before decorating. Once fully cool, decorate with royal icing for crisp piped detail or a simple powdered-sugar glaze for a soft shine.
Frequently asked
Use the calculator on this page. Pick your pan dimensions (or enter a total batter weight) and every ingredient amount updates automatically. The recipe is written in baker's percentage, so the ratio — and the texture — stays the same whether you bake an 8×8, a 9×13, or a half sheet.
Yes. The espresso powder is optional — it deepens the chocolate flavor without tasting like coffee, but the recipe works without it. Nuts and chocolate chips are mix-in toggles in the calculator: switch them on or off and the amounts update. Turning a mix-in off removes it cleanly without changing the rest of the ratio.
The brown-butter method cooks the butter to a nutty brown before mixing, which adds a deeper, almost caramel-edged flavor — at the cost of about 45 minutes of cooling time. The classic melt-and-whisk method is faster and still produces a rich, fudgy result. Both use the same ratio; only the butter handling changes.
More general questions about ratios, hydration, and the calculator on the FAQ page.
Background concepts
Foundational · Technique
What actually makes a cookie chewy, crispy, or cakey: how sugar type, butter handling, flour, eggs, leavening, dough chilling, and bake time each change the result — and how to dial a cookie toward the texture you want.
Read the guide →
Foundational · Ingredients
What flour, water, salt, yeast, sugar, oil, butter, eggs, milk, honey, and malt each contribute to bread — flavor, structure, fermentation, color, and texture. A practical reference for understanding any recipe and adapting it on purpose.
Read the guide →
Foundational · Bread math
What baker’s percentage actually means, why every bread recipe in the library uses it, and how to read a percentage at a glance. With worked examples and a quick-reference table.
Read the guide →