Cutout Sugar Cookies

By Renna

Great dough for freezing to have on hand when needed. Perfect for the holidays—cut them into any festive shapes you want!

Ingredients

• 3 cups unsalted butter, softened at room temperature for an hour
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3 eggs
• 6 ounces cream cheese (3/4 of a standard cream cheese package)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 9 cups flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Details

Servings 8
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 55mins

Preparation

Step 1

In very large bowl of stand mixer, cream butter then add sugar. Cream until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at time, and beat until golden. Add cream cheese, beat until well incorporated. Add flavorings and lemon zest.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in separate bowl then add a little at a time to butter/sugar mixture until fully incorporated. Best to use very low setting on mixer to keep flour from going everywhere.

Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour or overnight. You can leave it in bowl but I prefer to divide my dough into several balls, then flatten each ball into a disk wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, then refrigerate, taking out one disk at a time from fridge when ready to roll and cut out. If dough is hard to roll, just let it set for a few minutes. You can also wrap the dough and freeze for later use.

Heat the oven to 350°F. Roll out 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out cookies. Tip: if the cookies are trying to get to soft or come apart when picking up to put on cookie sheet, set them back in fridge for about 10 minutes, but these cookies are really good to work with and this usually doesn't happen, I always cut my cookies at least 1/4" thick.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness. Thinner ones could start browning after about 8 minutes, the larger ones after about 10 minutes. You don't want them to get brown on top, just barely starting to brown at the very edge so keep a good eye on them. Let cool before icing or decorating, and store in a tightly covered container.