Old-Fashioned Drop Sugar Cookies

While my favorite cookie is one of these chocolate crinkle cookies, every cook should have a good recipe for drop sugar cookies in his or her repertoire.

This particular recipe produces a cookie that is a standout on its own, with a buttery, just-sweet-enough flavor. Give it a light dusting of granulated sugar and enjoy their tender yet chewy texture as is.

Or it’s also the perfect base recipe for cut-out cookies since it holds its shape well and doesn’t have a lot of rise while baking, giving you a nice flat surface to work with while decorating.

While this sugar cookie dough can be a bit on the sticky side, chilling it well should solve any issues when working with it. I like to use an OXO cookie scoop when making cookies to ensure that they’re all uniform in size.

Just scoop out the dough and roll it into a smooth ball. Then roll the ball of dough in a bowl of granulated sugar.

Then use a flat-bottomed ramekin or glass to flatten each cookie to about 1/2-inch thick. I sprinkled on a little extra granulated sugar before baking, but had I thought to pick some up at the store, I would have sprinkled some coarse sugar on at this point for extra visual appeal.

I guarantee these easy sugar cookies will go fast, so you may want to consider making a double batch! Or you can make a second batch and freeze it for later. Yes, you really can do this, and I have the scoop on how to freeze cookie dough so you can have fresh-baked cookies ANY TIME!

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Old-Fashioned Drop Sugar Cookies

Yield: 48 cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Additional Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 18 minutes

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Ingredients

• 3 sticks salted butter, softened*
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
• 4 eggs
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Instructions

1. Cream together softened butter, lemon zest, granulated sugar, and confectioners' sugar.
2. Add vanilla extract and almond extract, and beat in eggs one at a time.
3. Stir in flour and baking powder.
4. Chill dough for at least two hours, or even better, chill it overnight.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
6. Scoop out cookie dough and roll into uniform balls. Dredge each ball of dough in granulated sugar, and then flatten the balls using a flat-bottomed ramekin or glass to about 1/2 inch thick.
7. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes until just starting to brown around the edges.

Notes

* I do not add salt to this recipe, as the salt in salted butter is plenty. If you prefer to bake with unsalted butter, you may add 1 teaspoon of salt along with the flour and baking powder in step #3.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 24 Serving Size: 2
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 260Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 61mgSodium: 144mgCarbohydrates: 33gFiber: 1gSugar: 13gProtein: 4g

Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.

Have you tried this recipe?

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P.S. If you want to use this dough for cutout cookies, I highly recommend checking out this easy royal icing recipe… It has hundreds of glowing reviews!!