I have been using this recipe for a few years and it is undoubtedly my favorite. The dough itself is very simple and makes for very soft, yummy cookies. The work is in the decor, as with any sugar cookie I suppose. I will put the instructions here for what I do, but you can certainly just use your favorite white frosting for these.
My Favorite Sugar Cookies
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Recipe By: Megan
Serves: makes 3-4 dozen
Ingredients
- 1 pound butter, divided
- 1 white cake mix
- 2¾ cups flour
Ingredients for Frosting - 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon merengue powder
- 5-6 tablespoons warm water (amount will depend on if you are making the thick frosting for the edging or the watery frosting for the middle)
Preparation Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- Melt 2 sticks of the butter completely. Cut the other two sticks into small cubes and add to the melted butter. Stir until all the butter is melted.
- Combine butter, cake mix and flour in a stand mixer and beat with paddle attachment until smooth. (To get the cookies to be pink I simply added a little Wilton's pink food coloring to the dough)
- Roll out ⅛” thick and cut out with cookie cutters.
- Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake about 10 minutes or until just slightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool on the tray about 8-10 minutes. Remove from tray and place on a cooling rack until ready to frost.
For the Frosting - Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with the wire whisk attachment. Whisk until smooth.
- To make the thick icing, I usually add 4 tablespoons of water to the whole batch and then after I have separated it I add more to the larger portion.
- This is where things get tricky. You could just make it thick and slap it on with a knife. I would not blame you at all for that. But if you want things to be neat and orderly, this is what you are going to do. Get out a piping bag and fit it with a small round tip. Take about a ⅓ of the frosting and put it in a small bowl. If you want to color it, do so now. After you have colored it, put it into the piping bag.
- Add another tablespoon of water to the larger portion of frosting and mix, if you need to add more go ahead. You want it fairly runny but not watery if that makes sense. Go ahead and tint this also if you want to.
- Next, get a line of cookies ready to frost and pipe the outline each cookie with the piping bag. Next, fill the inside of where you piped with the watery frosting, if you need to move it around with a knife do so quickly as the frosting starts to harden fairly quickly. For this reason I usually like to just do circles because then you can just swirl cookie around to get the frosting all the way to the edge, but circle just are not satisfying for kids.
- The frosting will harden in about an hour and a half.
NOTE: We have discovered that these are pretty good if eaten the day you frost them. But they are WAY better if you cover the plate with plastic wrap and let them sit overnight. They soften up nicely and are absolutely perfect.
If you need a visual of how to decorate the cookies like this go to this link:
is a self taught home cook who enjoys cooking healthy and simple foods and delectable desserts for her husband and kids and the frequent last-minute dinner guests her husband shows up with.
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