Basic Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 ½cups/508 grams all-purpose flour
• 1teaspoon baking powder
• 1teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 ½cups/341 grams (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 ¼cups/250 grams granulated sugar
• 2large eggs
• 1teaspoon vanilla extract
• Frosting, glaze or royal icing
• DO AHEAD: Cookie dough can be made 5 days ahead and refrigerated. Cookies can be baked 2 days ahead, wrapped tightly and stored at room temperature.

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium-high until the mixture is light, fluffy and pale, about 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down sides of the bowl, and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract, and beat until everything is well combined, again stopping to scrape down the bowl as necessary.
3. Add dry ingredients all at once, and mix on low speed just until incorporated.
4. Scrape dough out of bowl, and divide it in 2 equal pieces. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap, patting into a 1-inch-thick disk. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 5 days ahead.
5. Heat oven to 325 degrees.
6. Roll out dough, one disk at a time, between 2 sheets of parchment paper until about 1/8 inch thick. Create shapes, using a lightly floured cookie cutter. Alternatively, using a knife, cut the dough into squares, rectangles or diamonds. If at any point, dough becomes too soft to cut and cleanly remove from parchment paper, slide it onto a cookie sheet and chill for a few minutes in the freezer or refrigerator. Gather any dough scraps and combine them into a disk. Roll and repeat the cookie-cutting process, chilling as necessary.
7. Place shapes onto parchment-lined baking sheets 1 inch apart and bake until cookie edges are lightly browned with sandy, pale centers, 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Cool the cookies on a rack, if you have one. Otherwise, let them cool on the sheet tray.
8. Decorate with a glaze, royal icing, frosting or whatever you’d like. Don’t forget the sprinkles.

Tip

• This yield is based on 2 1/2-inch round cookies. Yield will change based on size/shape.