So it’s definitely no lie that during the holiday season, cutout cookies are where it’s out.
It’s also definitely no lie that during the holiday season, cutout cookies are a pain in the butt. I’ve strugged for years trying to figure out how to make sure your cookies don’t break going from cookie cutter to baking sheet, or rise too much while backing, or break coming off of the sheet.
And then, a few years ago, I had an epiphany: Flour. It’s all about the flour.
For the purposes of this post, I was super lame and just used a regular Betty Crocker sugar cookie package. On that back of it, it lets you know that if you’re making cutout cookies, you should add a table spoon of flour. But it doesn’t end there.
You should definitely follow the directions to add the extra tablespoon of flour, especially because it keeps the cookies from rising so much you can’t really recognized the shape of
the cookie when it’s done in the oven. I’d probably keep my container of flour out for the rest of the cookies, too, though.
Use flour to keep your work space from getting too sticky, and add some to your rolling pin, too. You’ll more than likely not add so much flour that you ruin the taste of the cookies, so don’t worry too much about adding it to the mix. It’s going to keep the dough from getting too stuck to the rolling pin and getting you super frustrated.
From there, you just want to grab a hunk of dough and your favorite cookie cutter (I only used one, but it sure is pretty fun to use a bunch of different ones) and start rolling out the dough and cutting out your shapes.
I added some sprinkles to make them look a little bit more like snowflakes! Usually I’d frost the whole thing with Royal Icing, but I was kind of in a pinch to get these to my friend’s house for the night.
After cooking them for the amount indicated by whatever recipe you use (honestly, I wouldn’t set my timer for longer than five minutes… if you need longer, then keep ’em in longer, but nobody likes a burnt cookie,) take them out of the oven and let them cool. I usually let them cool directly on the cookie sheet for about two minutes, and then transfer them over to a cooling rack for a little while longer.
Look how beautiful!! These took pretty much no time to make, and only one of them broke on me (it was my fault… it didn’t let it cool enough before handling it).
Enjoy, guys!