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These easy cut out sugar cookies recipe are a family tradition for us at Christmas time. I remember making them with my mom, my aunts and my grandma while I was growing up. It was always one of my favorite times of the year. Stuffed in my grandma’s kitchen or around our round table the little apartment I lived in during my childhood, you could find me with fists full of rainbow sprinkles. Christmas cookie making for me marks togetherness, creativity and irreplaceable memories.

I first made this easy cut out sugar cookies recipe with my daughter at Christmas time when she was 2. One night after a long day at work (a 9-5 job) and dinner, I hastily started throwing together ingredients so she could experience decorating for the first time. It was dark out, I was very early in my pregnancy with my son and I only had two colors of sprinkles – red and green. But still, she loved it. And I loved that she loved it.
Building upon the first recipe
Each year since, we’ve made cut out sugar cookies together at Christmas time. My son joins in now. Friends have even joined in too. Kevin doesn’t usually participate until we get to the eating part. That’s his favorite part and he’s super helpful when it comes to the eating.
Over the years, I perfected that little recipe I threw together back in 2014. I’m excited to share our family’s easy cut out sugar cookies recipe with you.
No chill, easy cut out sugar cookies recipe
If you know me, you know I’m not the most patient person. Being a frantic mom when I started making these – squeezing life in between power points, press releases and marketing strategies – I didn’t want to have to wait for the dough to be ready. When I was ready, I needed the dough to be all set to go too. Not to mention, I had a 2-year-old who had seemed to of inherited my impatience too.
So, this is a no chill, easy cut out sugar cookies recipe. And honestly, they’re so simple to make. You can make these no chill cut out sugar cookies and cut them in about 20 minutes.

Topping the cookies
When it comes to topping the easy cut out sugar cookies recipe, there are several options. My kids have been fond of just simply adding sprinkles to them prior to being baked. You can do that and make them simple and delicious.
Royal icing is also a topping option. However, I have to tell you, I’m not a fan of royal icing. I don’t think it’s tastes all that great. To make it, you need to be comfortable working with raw eggs (which a lot of people aren’t) or use meringue powder, which you usually have to order. You can find it {HERE}.
Instead, I love my sugar icing on cut out sugar cookies. I’ve been working to make this icing for a few years now. I like that it looks like royal icing, but tastes so much better. That’s the recipe I’m giving you below with this easy cut out sugar cookies recipe,

In case you want to know a little more about this icing of mine, here are the pros and cons.
Pros of sugar icing
- It looks pretty.
- You can put it on with a butter knife.
- You can use sprinkles with it so the kids can still have fun.
- It tends to be more forgiving with air bubbles and mistakes. (Sometimes you can even wipe it off the cookie.)
- It tastes good!
Cons to sugar icing
- It’s not as accurate. It’s more liquid-like going on.
- It doesn’t dry hard like royal icing. It stays a little soft so it can make transporting tricky.
- You can’t layer it like royal icing because it doesn’t dry the same so it limits the decorating a bit.
But still, it tastes better. 🙂

The cookie dough
The easy cut out sugar cookie recipe dough is really your ideal dough for making cut out cookies. Aside from it being no chill cut out sugar cookie dough, the cookie dough doesn’t spread and they don’t puff up too much when baked either.
The dough is rolled out about a 1/4 inch thick and just bakes up so nicely. These cut out sugar cookies will be soft and they stay soft as long as they’re stored in an airtight container.
Shop our Kitchen
To make this easy cut out sugar cookies recipe, there are a few things you will need and a few things I use each time. I always use my KitchenAid Mixer. You can find that {HERE} and they are usually on sale over the holidays. I bought mine on an Amazon Prime Day so I got it for a steal!
If you don’t have a stand mixer and don’t want spend the money, you can use a hand mixer but it will be a bit more difficult.I have this hand mixer {HERE}.
There’s also a few standard pieces that I always use when baking and I wanted to share them with you.
- Stoneware Mixing Bowls
- Stoneware Batter Bowl
- Metal Whisk
- Spatula set
- 3 piece bakeware set that includes cooling rack

Overall, there’s so many things I love about this cut out sugar cookie recipe. But most of all, I love that they’re made with love, memories, a touch of frazzled mom and a bit of Italian girl moxie.
Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! You can find the full, printable recipe below and I hope you’ll come back again to see what else we’re up to at Sugar Maple Farmhouse. For more of our favorite recipes, click {HERE}.



Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies Recipe
These no chill Cut Out Sugar Cookies are our family recipe that we make each Christmas and throughout the year.
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Servings: 20 cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer
Ingredients
Cut Out Sugar Cookie Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature It MUST be at room temperature.
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
Icing Ingredients
- 2 cups confectioners sugar
- 2 Tbsp. melted butter
- 3-4 Tbsp. of milk Start with 3 and add the 4th if you feel it is too thick.
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Optional: Food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes. You might need to scrape the bowl a few times to get the butter off the sides.
- Separately, mix or sift your other dry ingredients together.
- Then, mix together the egg and vanilla in another bowl.
- Once the butter and sugar are well combined, begin gradually adding the in the egg and vanilla mixture. Continue to mix for about 2 minutes.
- Once that’s combined, turn your mixer on low and gradually add your flour in. I add in about half a cup to ¾ a cup at a time. You might need to scrape the sides a time or two.
- Roll your dough out onto parchment paper and work it into two sections. Set one aside so you can work on smaller batches. This is helpful for smaller kitchens.
- Begin rolling out your dough. I like to roll mine to about ¼ inch. If your dough feels sticky, you can roll it between two pieces of parchment paper. But, this dough shouldn’t be sticky.
- Cut out sugar cookie shapes and add them to a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Give them enough space to cook, but they won’t spread much on you. NOTE: If you don’t use parchment paper the bottoms of your cookies will brown too fast.
- Bake for 9/10 minutes. Keep an eye on them, a minute can be the difference between a cookie that’s the right color and one that is a little too brown on the edges.
- Remove them from the oven when they’re done and let them cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. Then remove them to complete cooling on a cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing.
- While the cookies are cooling, mix your icing ingredients together and then let sit for about 5-10 minutes until the mixture starts to stiffen.
- Add icing to the cookie with a knife, by drizzling it on or by using a piping bag. Let harden before serving.
Yum! We always make sugar cookies in December. We top ours with buttercream frosting. So delicious.
These look so easy, and fun, to make! My daughter has been asking if we could bake cookies for Santa this year, I think I’ll save this and give it a try for our Santa cookies! Thank you for sharing
Those are so cute! I love the frosting with the little ornaments on it. Adorable. They sound tasty, too!
I’ve actually made sugar cookies this weekend, I need to make your version though! I could save the hour chill time
I aspire to make my cookies come out looking this good! Perhaps I will give it a try again these look delish
Thanks for the recipe. Will try this with my son!
The cut out cookies are my favorite part of the holidays. I will be making this with my boys
They look great and delicious.
They look perfect! I’m more of a kitchen sink, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia, dark chocolate pecan cookie girl (I’m not about simple flavors at all when it comes to treats), but I loved making roll-out sugar cookies at Christmas time when I was a kid, so I want to do it with my daughter in a few years, when she’s old enough!
xo Danai @ Living, Learning, Eating
living-learning-eating.blogspot.com
I love your take on an alternative to royal icing. I will definitely be sharing to pinterest to reference for the upcoming baking season with my girls
These look so delicious! I plan to make some with my kids for Santa this year!
Those cookies are super cute. I love the job you did with the frosting. They’re as festive as they are delicious.
We make sugar cookies but ours never turn out as beautiful as yours did!
Beautiful! I just made my first ever cut out sugar cookies!
These look amazing! My daughters and I always do sugar cookies for the holidays too. I would love to try this recipe though. I’ve always wanted to do royal icing.
I used to make these all the time with my mom. It is one tradition I would like to start again.
We like sugar cookies. I need to master the royal icing yet.
Your cookies are so pretty. I can’t wait to try this recipe.
I love making cookies the whole year. Thanks for sharing your recipe.
I haven’t made sugar cookies before. Christmas tree shaped sounds fun.
Definitely trying this recipe out!
Oh these all look so delicious 😍 I’ll be trying them out this Christmas!
I love holiday themed cookies. This one looks so great and so neat..! Thanks for sharing your recipe.
I used to love baking sugar cookies, of course they never looked this pretty, but still so much fun to make!
These cookies look delicious! I love baking during the holidays with our kids.
These look absolutely perfect! I need to make and send some to my mom – great recipe to use!
These sugar cookies look absolutely amazing. I love the way you decorated them. We will be doing this over the weekend!
Making cookies like this is one of my favorite ways to spend the holidays. These are so cute!
I was thinking to make some sugar cookies next weekend and these tips are so welcome!
They look delicious. I’ll be making these cookies with my twins.
Cookies are the trend recipe that kids really love! And this one is perfect for this coming holiday. It looks so tasty! Yummy!
Yes please. We love making sugar cookies for the holidays. I’ll try this recipe!
I am going to try these. I’ve never done these myself. But I adore the look.
I always struggle with sugar cookies. These look amazing and like a recipe I could succeed with – love that icing too!
Love sugar cookies and these are no chill? Yes please, I hate to wait XD
This is perfect for the Holidays! I cannot wait to make this for my family
Your sugar cookies look so amazing. I love baking cookies with my daughters during the holidays. It’s such a fun, festive way to celebrate the season.
Cookies are my go-to recipes for the Holidays. And baking cookies is one of the easiest ways to make the holidays festive
These cookies look great! This is one of my favorite things to do over winter break with the kids. Bake cookies.
Such a fun holiday tradition thanks for sharing your family recipe!
This looks like a really amazing and delicious recipe, I really wanted to try this!
These are the cutest Christmas tree cookies I’ve seen. I hope I can manage to recreate them.
YUM! I can’t wait to make Christmas cookies.
Definitely going to be making cookies with the kiddos soon this is going to be great!
This is so adorable! We love making cookies! Going to have to give these a try soon!
These are adorable! I always struggle with sugar cookies, but I will have to give your recipe a try. The trees are just so cute!
These sugar cookies look delicious. I would love to try these out and make them for my family.
You made these cookies look so perfect! I love also how simple yet stunning the decorations are.
that icing looks perfect.. i hope i can achieve the same perfection (will try it next week, or maybe this weekend!)
I’ve been looking for a sugar cookie recipe for Christmas cookies. Thanks for sharing this!
Your cookies turned out beautiful and I bet they taste just as great. Bookmarking this!
These cookies are almost too pretty and perfect to eat…. Almost LOL> I love sugar cookies and would love to try and recreate these for my family.
Trying to make this recipe but my dough is too sticky. Should I add more flour when that happens?
Yes. Have extra flour nearby and flour your work surface, the rolling pin and your hands. There’s a quick video of me doing it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClrJ-EqozNI/