super easy sugar cookies and butter cream frosting!

It’s cookie season and these sugar cookies are the ones I grew up on and make a couple times a year. They’re easy, require basic ingredients, and can be made within a couple hours…frosting included! 🙂

Since these cookies require some fridge time, I typically make them before dinner and put them in the fridge while we make dinner/eat and then take them out after to bake! They take about 30 minutes to cool down and the frosting takes no time at all. I cannot stress this enough when I say these are the easiest recipes.

The sugar cookies make roughly 2 dozen depending on how thick you roll your cookies out. I roll them out to be 1/4 of an inch and they cook evenly every time.

In my stand mixer (works well with a hand mixer too) I’ll combine the 1 cup of butter, sugar, and egg and mix!. I always scrape the sides a couple times here to make sure the butter is evenly mixed in.

I then add in the milk and vanilla. In the past I have used just vanilla and just butter flavoring. I truly don’t notice a huge difference between the two other than the butter flavoring makes it a little sweeter.

While the mixer is going add the flour in 1 cup at a time. Since the flour isn’t sifted for this recipe the flour isn’t as light when mixed in. Learn from my mistake and don’t add it all in at once. Little flower pockets will form.

Once the dough is formed place saran wrap over the dough and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes – 1 hour.

Before rolling out your dough, be sure to coat your surface with a light layer of flour to prevent the cookies from sticking. I recommend using only half the dough at a time so you’re not overworking the dough and warming it back up! The colder it is, the easier it is to handle the cookies.

Preheat oven to 400° and place cookies about 1/2 an inch apart. they don’t spread so you won’t have to worry about them touching. Bake for 9 minutes and let sit for about 1 minute on the pan before moving them to a cookie rack or the counter.

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Now is time for the frosting! This recipe is what I make for cakes, cupcakes, and cookies! It’s the perfect amount of sweet and has that super creamy butter flavor to it. It’s also really easy. I typically double it for every batch of sugar cookies I make because we make a couple colors and we always end up with some left over to spread on graham crackers.

In a mixing bowl combine the butter and powdered sugar. If you have a wider mixing bowl slowly add the powdered sugar or you’ll have a big mess from it all.

Mix in the butter flavoring on it’s own. This will thin the mix out a bit but you will still need to add the milk to thin it out a bit more.

Add a splash of milk to get the frosting consistency to your liking. I typically add around 1/2 a tablespoon. Something to keep in mind is that adding a liquid food coloring will thin out the frosting more so if you’re planning on adding some, maybe hold back on adding as much milk.

As always, I’m not a food blogger and most likely never will be. Any recipe I share is just what I like and can successfully make! This is one of my favorite things to do during the holidays so of course I have to share it with you!

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