My Childhood Sugar Cookie Recipe

February 6, 2020

When I think of a family traditional recipe I think of these Sugar Cookies!
This is the recipe we’ve been making since I was a kid and it’s our go-to treat for almost every Party and Holiday.
If you’re looking for a deliciously soft and perfectly sweet sugar cookie— this is it!
We always sprinkle the cookies with colored granulated sugar before baking…
but you could also bake and then frost/decorate.
I actually prefer when we do the granulated sugar before and bake because it ends up being just the right amount of sweetness in the cookie.
I can’t rave enough about this recipe and I regularly get messages from blog readers who have made them from my old blog post- everyone loves them!!!
I made up a batch for Valentine’s Day fun – Heart cookie cutters are from Walmart and Target.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (optional but how can you resist nutmeg)
3/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup milk
Decorations: Granulated or colored sugar (Or Wilton’s Cookie Icing bottles or frosting of your choice!)
The smaller the granulated sugar the better it sticks!

 

DIRECTIONS:

Sift together dry ingredients into bowl and set aside.
Cream butter until light and fluffy. add sugar, egg, and vanilla and cream well.
Add dry ingredients and milk, stirring until thoroughly blended.
Wrap with foil, waxed paper, or plastic film, and chill in refrigerator for 2 or 3 hours.
But you can’t forget to put it into a corelle dish just like how my mom did growing up!! haha..
It just is PART of the whole nostalgia of these cookies for me.
Roll out half of the dough at a time and cut out shapes with lightly floured cutters.
Arrange cookies on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with granulated sugar. (Walmart has great granulated sugar sprinkles!)
Bake in hot oven (400 F) for 6 to 7 minutes.
Makes 3 1/2 to 4 dozen. (depending on size of cookie cutter shapes.)


To reduce the mess, I put out parchment paper on the table when it’s time to roll out the dough.
You don’t need much space. These sugars were from Home Goods and I loved how big and sparkly they were for Valentine’s Day Cookies!
But I will say that our go-to granulated sugar is much smaller! Sometimes we sprinkle it on before we bake…and then a little bit more after you pull them out! 
These cookies are so soft and delicious!! We’ve been making these

for as long as I can remember and now I make them with my own kids.
Last time I made the recipe was for the Super Bowl!
Love these letter cookie cutters! (I’m pretty sure I got them on Amazon!)


Here’s just a few of the times we’ve made up this recipe!
Star cookies for Micah’s Super Mario Birthday party, Christmas cookies with frosting, the super bowl “go team go” letters and then some yellow dog bones for Asher’s Rubble Birthday party!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you try out this sugar cookie recipe.
I am positive it’s going to end up being a favorite in your house as well!


  • Kelly
    February 10, 2020 at 9:34 pm

    Do you prefer butter or margarine in your cookies?

    • natalie
      September 9, 2020 at 6:03 pm

      I typically use margarine!