Like a cross between traditional sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, these brown sugar cut-out cookies are made with butter, darkish brown sugar, and a contact of cozy spices. Excellent for the vacations or anytime you crave sugar cookies with just a little additional taste! Make them any form you want and have enjoyable adorning along with your alternative of icing.
Name them a compromise cookie. Possibly you need to beautify Christmas cookies, however you possibly can’t determine between making sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, and solely have the time/vitality/elements to make only one…
…or possibly you like the festive spiced taste of gingerbread cookies however can’t discover molasses the place you reside…
…or possibly you like sugar cookies, however crave one thing with just a little extra taste…
Meet the answer that’s certain to please everybody: brown sugar cut-out cookies.
(Now, deciding whether or not to high them with royal icing, straightforward glaze icing, or cookie adorning buttercream… you’re by yourself for that one!)
Brown Sugar Reduce-Out Cookies Recipe Snapshot
- Texture: These cookies have mushy, thick facilities with barely crisp edges, similar to traditional sugar cookies and Christmas sugar cookies.
- Taste: Buttery and candy with comforting brown sugar and comfortable spice flavors. Should you desire a plain brown sugar cookie, you possibly can omit the spices.
- Ease: If in case you have an electrical mixer and a rolling pin, you possibly can positively make these cookies.
- Time: This dough wants to sit back for at the very least 1–2 hours, however the time it takes to make the dough and bake the cookies is fairly quick. The way you determine to embellish the cookies will account for including kind of time.
Key Elements You Want
- Brown Sugar: Like these pecan sugar cookies, utilizing all brown sugar instead of white sugar provides these cookies a deeper, extra advanced taste. I like to recommend darkish brown sugar right here for essentially the most taste, however mild brown sugar is ok if that’s all you may have.
- Spice: Cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg are the flavour energy gamers right here. If you wish to maintain these cookies as plain brown sugar cookies, you possibly can merely miss the spices.
- Every little thing Good: You additionally want flour, baking powder, butter, an egg, salt, and vanilla extract. Cookie baking fundamentals!
Right here’s the lineup:
Find out how to Hold Brown Sugar Moist
I sometimes use Domino model sugar. I’m not sponsored by or working with the model—I similar to the standard of their merchandise for baking! However even shopping for a name-brand brown sugar at the next value level doesn’t assure the sugar can be (or keep) completely mushy and moist.
To maintain brown sugar mushy, retailer it in an hermetic container in a cool, dry place, like a pantry, drawer, or cabinet. I retailer my flours and sugars in these containers, and have completed so for years.
In case your brown sugar turns into laborious and crumbly, all isn’t misplaced! You’ll be able to soften it up once more by including one thing that absorbs moisture, reminiscent of a slice of bread or a marshmallow, to the container and letting it sit in a single day. Simply bear in mind to take away the (now-stale) bread the subsequent day, earlier than it turns moldy.
For a extra everlasting resolution, use a terracotta sugar saver. Terracotta absorbs moisture (and doesn’t go unhealthy), and you should buy a brown sugar-saver bear or disc that’s particularly designed for this goal. You’ll be able to even purchase brown sugar storage containers that embody a terracotta piece proper within the lid, like this one. They’re actually helpful.
This brown sugar cookie dough comes collectively shortly with an electrical mixer. As soon as all of your elements are mixed, it’s time to roll out and chill the dough.
My #1 Tip for Making Reduce-Out Cookies
Roll the dough out earlier than chilling. I’ll clarify why that is so profitable. Divide the dough in half, roll out every portion, after which chill:
Most sugar cookie doughs require chilling so the cookies maintain their cookie cutter form within the oven. However should you’ve ever tried rolling out chilled sugar cookie dough, you might bear in mind how tough it’s to flatten chilly, stiff dough. So, roll out the dough whereas it’s nonetheless mushy (proper after making it), after which chill the rolled-out dough. Right here’s my actual methodology, and it really works for chocolate sugar cookies, too:
- Divide the dough in half as a result of smaller sections are simpler to roll out.
- Roll out the cookie dough straight on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper so you possibly can simply switch it to the fridge.
- Decide the entire thing up, set it on a baking sheet, and place it within the fridge. Keep in mind, you may have 2 slabs of dough. Should you don’t have sufficient room for two baking sheets in your fridge, merely stack the items of rolled-out dough on high of one another, with parchment paper or silicone baking mat in between.
After the rolled-out dough chills for at the very least 1–2 hours, use cookie cutters to chop out shapes. Be sure you re-roll the dough scraps as wanted.
The cookies are completed when the perimeters are set and the middles nonetheless look barely mushy. These cookies maintain their form properly within the oven, and bake up with a pleasant flat floor that’s excellent for adorning.
Now, for everybody’s favourite half!
Adorning Brown Sugar Reduce-Out Cookies
For the cookies you see pictured right here, my staff and I used royal icing to embellish the cookies formed like reindeer, bushes, sweet canes, and gingerbread folks. And we used cookie adorning buttercream to embellish the snowflake cookies.
Should you’re new to adorning with royal icing, it might assist to look at my video tutorial on the way to beautify sugar cookies. I’ll stroll you thru 4 easy and approachable strategies which can be an excellent place to begin should you’re new to cookie adorning. For the pictured cookies, I used Wilton piping tip #4 for outlining and flooding with icing. It is a fantastic primary piping tip to have in your assortment.
I even have an straightforward cookie icing glaze you may strive as a substitute. It takes longer to dry than royal icing, nevertheless it’s fast and straightforward to make, it doesn’t require piping luggage/ideas. I exploit squeeze bottles for it! It’s fantastic in case you have younger bakers keen to assist beautify.
And, in fact, don’t neglect the sprinkles. Should you plan to dedicate a complete day to cookie-baking, right here’s how Find out how to Host a Cookie Adorning Day information. 😉
Sally’s Cookie Palooza
This recipe is a part of my annual cookie countdown referred to as Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the most important, most scrumptious occasion of the 12 months! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza web page together with:
Brown Sugar Reduce-Out Cookies
Prep Time: 2 hours, half-hour
Cook dinner Time: 12 minutes
Complete Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes
Yield: 24 3-inch cookies
Class: Cookies
Technique: Baking
Delicacies: American
Description
These brown sugar cut-out cookies are excellent for the vacations or anytime you crave sugar cookies with just a little additional taste. Make them any form you want and have enjoyable adorning along with your alternative of icing. The variety of cookies this recipe yields will depend on the scale of the cookie cutter you employ. Should you’d wish to make dozens of cookies for a big crowd, double the recipe.
Directions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and salt collectively in a medium bowl. Put aside.
- In a big bowl utilizing a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar collectively on excessive pace till fully clean and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat on excessive pace till mixed, about 1 minute. Scrape down the edges and backside of the bowl and beat once more as wanted to mix.
- Add the dry elements to the moist elements and blend on low pace till mixed. Dough can be a bit mushy. If the dough appears too mushy and sticky for rolling, add extra flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time, beating properly after every addition.
- Divide the dough in half. Place every portion onto a chunk of evenly floured parchment paper or a evenly floured silicone baking mat. With a evenly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Use extra flour if the dough appears too sticky. The rolled-out dough will be any form, so long as it’s evenly 1/4-inch thick.
- Frivolously mud one of many rolled-out doughs with flour. Place a chunk of parchment on high. (This prevents sticking.) Place the 2nd rolled-out dough on high. Cowl with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, then refrigerate for at the very least 1–2 hours, or as much as 2 days.
- As soon as chilled, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line giant baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Fastidiously take away the highest dough piece from the fridge. If it’s sticking to the underside, run your hand below it to assist take away it. Utilizing a cookie cutter, lower the dough into shapes. Re-roll the dough scraps and proceed reducing till all is used. Repeat with 2nd piece of dough. (Word: It doesn’t seem to be a variety of dough, however you get a variety of cookies from the dough scraps you re-roll.)
- Organize cookies on baking sheets 3 inches aside. Bake for 11–12 minutes or till evenly browned across the edges. Permit cookies to chill on the baking sheet for five–10 minutes, then switch to a wire rack to chill fully earlier than adorning.
- Embellish the cooled cookies with royal icing, cookie buttercream, or straightforward cookie icing; high with sprinkles, if utilizing. Be at liberty to tint any of those icings with gel meals coloring. For adorning inspiration, my Find out how to Embellish Sugar Cookies tutorial is useful.
- Get pleasure from cookies instantly or wait till the icing units to serve them. Plain or embellished cookies keep mushy for about 5 days when coated tightly at room temperature. For longer storage, cowl and refrigerate for as much as 10 days. If embellished with cookie buttercream, cowl and retailer embellished cookies at room temperature for 1 day, or within the fridge for as much as 5 days.
Notes
- Freezing Directions: Plain or embellished sugar cookies freeze properly as much as 3 months. Await the icing to set fully earlier than layering between sheets of parchment paper in a freezer-friendly container. To thaw, thaw within the fridge or at room temperature. You may as well freeze the cookie dough for as much as 3 months earlier than rolling it out. Put together the dough by way of step 3, divide in half, flatten each halves right into a disc as we do with pie crust, wrap every in plastic wrap, then freeze. To thaw, thaw the discs within the fridge, then carry to room temperature for about 1 hour. Roll out the dough as directed in step 4, then chill rolled-out dough within the fridge for 45 minutes–1 hour earlier than reducing into shapes and baking. See this put up on the way to freeze cookie dough for a video tutorial.
- Particular Instruments (affiliate hyperlinks): Electrical Mixer (Handheld or Stand Mixer) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Picket Rolling Pin or Adjustable Rolling Pin | Vacation Cookie Cutter Set | Cooling Rack | Piping Baggage (Disposable or Reusable) | Couplers | Piping Suggestions Set | Assorted Sprinkles (Like These or These)
- Can I Go away Out The Spices? Sure. In order for you a plain brown sugar cookie, you possibly can miss the spices with no different modifications to the recipe.
- Room Temperature: Room temperature butter is crucial. If the dough is just too sticky, your butter could have been too mushy. Room temperature butter is definitely cool to the contact. Room temperature egg is most well-liked so it’s shortly and evenly blended into the cookie dough.
- Icing: Use royal icing, straightforward cookie icing, or cookie adorning buttercream. See put up above to learn in regards to the variations.
- Can I Double the Recipe? Sure. Double the entire elements and divide the dough into 3 or 4 sections in step 4.
- Be sure you try my high 5 cookie baking ideas AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking instruments.
