Hi Bold Bakers! When the holidays roll around, there are certain recipes you need in your back pocket. You know, those recipes you can whip up in a flash and that are fan favorites. My Best Ever Sugar Cookie Recipe is exactly that. Cookies are so much fun to bake around the holidays because they are great for little hands to make and decorate, and you can even give them out as holiday gifts. So let’s get baking! ABOUT GEMMA Hi Bold Bakers! I’m Gemma Stafford, a professional chef originally from Ireland, and I’m passionate about sharing my years of baking experience to show you how to bake with confidence anytime, anywhere! Join millions of other Bold Bakers in the community for new videos at 8:30am Pacific Time every Thursday and Sunday!
Hi Bold Bakers! A sugar cookie is a Christmas staple and I have the perfect recipe for you
that you can dress up or down this holiday season. Also, I'm excited to tell you that
I have the Holiday Baking Headquarters over on BiggerBolderBaking.com. Every recipe you'll need
this holiday season, including loads more cookie recipes. So after this video, head over there and
check them out. But right now, we're going to get started with our cookie dough. So I'm going to
make this cookie dough on a food processor because it's really fast and easy. However,
if you don't have one, you can always do it by hand and that will work really well too.
So into my food processor, I'm going to add in all my dry ingredients. Flour, sugar, baking powder,
and a little bit of salt. And then with a spatula, I just like to give this a little bit of a mix
around to make sure that everything is well combined. Lovely. You can't beat a sugar cookie
around the holidays. Okay, now into this mix, a very important ingredient, cold butter. So now
what you do is pop on the lid and we're just going to pulse this until it resembles fine bread
crumbs. You want to make sure that all the butter is in nice small pieces and even throughout.
This just takes a few seconds. So as you can see, our butter is all blended nicely all the way
throughout our flour. If you're doing this method by hand, it is harder to get such fine pieces of
butter, but don't worry, something that resembles coarse bread crumbs is spot on. Okay, lovely.
Now we're going to add in some wet ingredients into here. So here I have my eggs. Now into here,
I'm going to add in a little bit of vanilla extract because sugar cookies always have that
little bit of vanilla in them. And then just give them a whisk together. It's always good to combine
these before adding them into the rest of the ingredients. And then all we're going to do
is just pour this over our dry ingredients, pop on your lid, and then just pulse it until it forms
one big ball. So now if you notice that your dough isn't coming together, it's a little bit dry,
you can add in a little bit more egg or even a little bit of milk just to bring it together.
So in case you haven't noticed, this cookie dough is so fast to make. It's just really simple.
So it's come together in a nice big ball. This is perfect. Now I'm going to get this out of here and
put it in some cling wrap. You can always tell a good cookie dough when it comes together in one
big ball. So now what you want to do is wrap it up nice and tight in cling wrap. Now this is what I
do. I like to make it at least a day ahead of when I need it so it's really lovely and cold.
Definitely needs around two to three hours minimum to chill in the fridge before you can actually
roll it. Another good thing about this dough is that it freezes really well. So pop it into
your freezer and then you can take it out whenever you need it around the holiday season.
So it's been a few hours. My cookie dough is lovely and chilled. So I've got some flour on
my surface. There's my dough ready to go. For this cookie dough, you do need a good bit of flour
because it can get pretty soft. So with your rolling pin, roll it out to around a quarter of
an inch thick. It really depends on what cookies you're making, but that's a good thickness. What
I do with this cookie dough around the holidays is I keep a little bit out and then I keep some
in the freezer as well because it makes loads of cookies. So you can have some fresh and then you
can have some for later. So because I'm a huge fan of Christmas, I have loads of little Christmas
cutters. I collect these all year round just waiting for the holiday season. So go ahead and
cut out any shapes that you like. And just so you know, these are the crisp kind of cookies that
you decorate with royal icing for the holidays. They're not the soft type. I have a recipe on my
website of the soft ones and I also have a recipe for the royal icing of how you can decorate them.
It's really easy and fun. One thing about working with this dough, do work as quick as you can
because it does get soft. And if it does, you can always pop it back into the fridge and then roll
it out again. Oh, look at that. That is a really festive looking tray. Now these guys are ready
to be baked off. Bake your sugar cookies off at 325°F or 160°C for roughly 18-20 minutes
or until they're a really light golden brown. Our timer just went off so let's check on our
cookies. You can tell these are perfectly done because they're a lightly golden brown all over
and they're a nice even color. Absolutely gorgeous. Just look at how festive these are. They make
fantastic gifts around the holiday season. You can decorate them, box them up and give them to
the ones that you love. Oh my gosh. Not only do they look great, but they taste amazing too.
They're a little bit sweet, they're buttery, got some vanilla in there. Give me a mug of hot
chocolate and I'm good to go. On my website, you can upload photos of your own creations.
It's really easy to do. It's a great way to get inspired and see what the community is baking.
Head over to my website right now and check out my holiday baking headquarters and get every
recipe you need this holiday season. I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.
