The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (2024)

I’m about to do something that I never do lightly: share my family’s butter cookie recipe. This recipe comes from my paternal grandmother and was adopted by my mom inmy childhood. It’s our favorite family cookie and was usually the envy of all my friends. The best part about this butter cookie recipe is we’ve always used it for holidays, because no other cookie can compare when it comes to using cookie cutters. They always retain their shape, don’t expand while baking, are great for frosting and perfect for creating memories with your kids. I hope your family enjoys them as much as mine.

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Ingredients

Butter Cookies

1.5 cups of unsalted butter, softened (3 sticks); I personally use margarine and it works great

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

4.5 cups flour

Frosting

2 cups confectioners sugar

1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick)

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 tsp milk

Food Coloring

Tools

Mixer

Rolling Pin

Cutting Board

Wax Paper

Cookie Cutters

Sprinkles

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Instructions

Cream butter and sugar.

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Make sure your mixture is nice and fluffy!The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (4)

Add in egg and vanilla, and mix well.

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Be sure to scrape the sides of your bowl and mix everything in.The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (6)

Add salt and flour. If you don’t have a large bowl, add only half the flour and mix. Then add second half and mix again.

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When your dough is well combined, it should resemble this. My Kitchen Aid does a pretty good job of mixing on it’s own, but I always like to do a few smushes with my hand to make a nice ball of dough.

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The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (9)

Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and allow to refrigerate at least an hour. For this recipe to live up to it’s potential the dough needs to be nice and chilly so it maintains it’s shape. Give beater to kidsto eat and relax while your dough chills 😉

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Once your dough is chilled, preheat oven to 375. Lightly flour a cutting board (I use a nice, large wooden one).

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Put a medium to large ball of dough in the middle of your cutting board. The size of your board will determine how much you can roll out at once.The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (13)

Lay a piece of wax paper on top and then use your rolling pin to thin out the dough into an even layer. This recipe works best if cookies are about a 1/4 inch thick.

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Then start using whatever shaped cookie cutters you want and begin cutting them out! When you’ve used your available dough, form into a ball and repeat the process of rolling it out.

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Lay the cookies out on a cookie sheet and pop in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye, these cook fast and you don’t want a burnt cookie! You’ll note the hodge podge nature of my current batch of cookies. I call this collection “what happens when your 3-year old picks out the cookie cutters!”

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Once removed from the oven, allow butter cookies to completely cool on sheets of waxed paper before frosting. Now, for the frosting!

Combine butter, vanilla extract and confectioners sugar and beat until creamy. I personally use a hand mixer for this step.

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Add a little less than ONE tablespoon of milk and then beat. You do NOT want a runny frosting, you want a creamy but flexible version that is easy to layer on the butter cookies. You can always add more milk if it’s too thick, so just add small amounts at a time. Once you have your desired consistency, spoon into separate bowls and then add food coloring! I personally did summer colors this time around. I suggest when the holidays roll in, to invest in some Wilton Gel food coloring. You will get rich, vibrant colors that you just can’t get from traditional liquid coloring.The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (20)

Use a cookie sheet to frost and add sprinkles to your cooled butter cookies. This is the best part for kids! The cookie sheet will help contain the mess and not allow quite so many sprinkles to escape on your table and floor.

The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (21) I love how the frosting and sprinkles gives everyone the creative license to make a beautiful cookie in their own way. This traditional style butter cookie is one for the memory books and I hope you and your family enjoy.
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Karly Wood

Editor at Red Tricycle

I'm a born and bred Southern California native and currently the managing editor at Red Tri. I get to share my life with my husband of 13 years and our beautiful, 5-year old daughter. In my free time you'll catch me cheering for the Dodgers, cooking, baking, reading, crafting and probably watching a little HGTV!

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Karly Wood

I'm a born and bred Southern California native and currently the managing editor at Red Tri. I get to share my life with my husband of 13 years and our beautiful, 5-year old daughter. In my free time you'll catch me cheering for the Dodgers, cooking, baking, reading, crafting and probably watching a little HGTV!

The Best Butter Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cutters (2024)

FAQs

What type of cookie dough is best for cookie cutters? ›

(In general, you're looking for a smooth dough that can be rolled thin, cuts cleanly and contains little or no baking powder.) If the dough gets too warm, refrigerate or freeze it until it becomes firm again. Your leaf shapes should do just fine.

How do you make cookies keep their cookie cutter shape? ›

Sandwich your dough between two sheets of parchment, roll, then freeze; it makes cut-out cookies a breeze! If you plan to store it for only a few hours or days, there's no need to overwrap the baking sheet; for longer storage, wrap the entire baking sheet tightly with plastic wrap before freezing.

How do you keep cookies from spreading when using cookie cutters? ›

Using Warm Cookie Baking Trays

Ideally you want to cut your cookies and then chill them with the baking sheet. that way the tray is still cool when it goes in the oven and the cookies have no time to spread before they are baked through.

How do you keep cookies from sticking to cookie cutter? ›

Dip your cookie cutters in flour with each cut. Work from the center of the rolled-out dough to the edges, cutting shapes close to one another to prevent extra scraps and extra rerolling. If the cookie cutters get really sticky, wipe them off with a damp paper towel.

Do you chill cookie dough before cookie cutters? ›

Once it has been rolled to the thickness you're going for, chill the dough for the requisite time. Once the dough has chilled, peel off the top layer of parchment and cut the cookies out of the rolled sheet. But instead of removing the cut-out cookies, simply remove the scraps from around the cut-outs.

Can I use store-bought cookie dough with cookie cutters? ›

Simple metal cookie cutters can transform store-bought slice-and-bake dough into the most festive holiday dessert. For these Christmas cut-outs, all you need is a 16.5-ounce roll of Pillsbury sugar-cookie dough, some flour, and an oven (elbow grease not included).

What ingredient helps cookies keep their shape? ›

Mixing Butter & Sugar

If your butter is under mixed, it won't have the air pockets to hold it's shape. If it's over-mixed, the air pockets decrease in size and are unable to hold their shape in the oven—causing your cookies to spread. It's best to cream butter and sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

What is the cookie cutter method? ›

If you describe something as having a cookie-cutter approach or style, you mean that the same approach or style is always used and not enough attention is paid to individual differences. Too many cookie-cutter condos were built with no attention to consumer needs.

Why do my butter cookies spread? ›

The Problem: Your Oven Is Too Hot

The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.

Should you grease cookie cutters? ›

Place the cutter cut side down into a plate of flour. Remove it from the plate of flour and tap the excess flour off. You have prepped the cutter and are now ready to make cutouts. Do not use a cooking spray or oil to prep the cutter.

What if I put too much butter in my cookies? ›

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

What is the trick for cookie cutters? ›

I keep a little salad plate of flour right by my rolling area and dip my cookie cutter in it between cuts. This keeps the cutter from sticking to the dough and stretching or tearing the shape.

How to make cookie dough not stick to cookie cutter? ›

How do you keep cookie dough from sticking to the cookie cutters? Dip your cookie cutter into flour, which should prevent sticking and avoid changing the texture of the dough. Also, be sure to cut cold cookie dough. Warm dough will be much too soft to cut and remove to a cookie sheet.

Why is my cookie dough sticking to the cookie cutter? ›

Pay particular attention to the areas on the cutters where there is a lot of detail, making sure flour gets into all the little corners since that is where sticking is most likely to be a problem.

What type of cookie is typically cut out of rolled dough? ›

Cut-out cookies can take many different forms and flavors — as long as the dough is rollable, it's often easy to cut out all sorts of shapes. A few different types of cut-out cookies include sugar cookies, shortbread cookies, gingerbread cookies, and spritz cookies.

What are most cookie cutters made of? ›

Most commonly made of copper, tin, stainless steel, aluminium, or plastic. Cutouts are the simplest of the cookie cutters; the cutter is pressed into cookie dough that has been rolled flat to produce the shape of the cutter's outline.

How to use cookie cutters with cookie dough? ›

Dip the sharp edge of your cookie cutter into flour and cut out shapes. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving an inch or more of space between the cutouts. This space allows the dough to spread slightly and the hot oven air to circulate around each cookie for even baking.

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