My very favorite is Martha Stewart's version. I love the lemon version, and always put a little lemon juice or lemon extract in the icing too. The vanilla is also good, but people always prefer the lemon. I made a batch last christmas for a large party, and everyone ate the lemon ones first.
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract or 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice and zest of 2 lemons
¼ cup fine sanding sugar, for decorating (optional)
In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside. Use an electric mixer to cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs. Add flour mixture, and mix on low speed until thoroughly combined. Stir in vanilla or lemon juice and zest. Wrap dough in plastic; chill for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. On a floured surface, roll dough to 1/8 thick. Cut into desired shapes. Transfer to ungreased baking sheets; refrigerate until firm, 15 minutes. Remove from refrigerator, and decorate with sanding sugar, if desired. Bake until edges just start to brown, 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire racks. May be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 16 large cookies or thirty 2 ½ cookies.
I LOVE the No Fail Sugar Cookie recipe! By far my favorite....very simple and tastes great!
http://cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2055-No-Fail-Sugar-Cookies.html
Couple this recipe with Antonia74's royal icing recipe. Awesome combo!
Try this awesome recipe from Cook's Illustrated's "The Best Recipe" cookbook. They went out in search of the best recipes in many categories, did tons of research, and I can see why this cookie was their favorite. Cook's Illustrated has quite a reputation in the culinary world, too.
MASTER RECIPE FOR ROLLED BUTTER COOKIES
**makes about 7 dozen 2-1/2" cookies rolled to 1/8" thick
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar, or granulated sugar processed in food processor for 30 seconds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, plus 1 yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
Either by hand or with electric mixer, cream butter, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes with mixer set at medium speed. Add yolk, beat well, then add whole egg and vanilla; continue beating until well incorporated. Add flour; beat at low speed until flour is just mixed in. Divide dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour. (Can be refrigerated up to 2 days or double-wrapped and frozen for 1 month).
Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove one disk of dough from refrigerator and cut in half. Return unused portion of dough to refrigerator.
Lightly flour work surface; roll dough to 1/8 inch thick, using thin metal spatula to loosen dough. Sprinkle surface lightly with flour as needed to keep dough from sticking.
Cut or form dough into desired shapes. Place dough shapes 1/2 inch apart on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake, reversing cookie sheets (from top to bottom and back to front) halfway through the baking time, until evenly golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes.
Use thin bladed spatula to immediately transfer cookies to cooling rack. Cool to room temperature. Decorate cooled cookies, if desired, and transfer to airtight container (can be stored up to 3 weeks).
VARIATIONS (if you want me to post any of these flavor variations, let me know):
Cornmeal-Citrus Cookies
Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies
Lemon Butter Cookies
Lemon-Poppy Seed Cookies
Orange Butter Cookies
Orange-Nut Cookies
Spice Cookies
Coconut Cookies
Ginger Cookies
Butterscotch Cookies
GLAZE OPTIONS:
Leman, Orange, or Plain Glaze
All-Purpose Chocolate Glaze
Wow, those sound great! I love Cooks Illustrated Recipes. Several of the variations sound SO good! I would love to have the recipe for Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies, Orange Butter Cookies, Coconut Cookies, and or
Butterscotch Cookies!!!! Thanks SO much for posting this, YUM!
I've only tried the regular recipe so if you try these variations, let us know how they taste!
CHOCOLATE CINNAMON - Follow master recipe, adding 1 ounce melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate to creamed butter, sugar, and salt. Substitute 1/4 cup of cocoa for 1/4 cup of the flour and mix in 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon to flour-cocoa mixture.
ORANGE BUTTER - Follow master recipe, adding 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest to creamed butter, sugar, and salt.
COCONUT COOKIES - Follow Master Recipe, stirring 1 cup toasted, flaked, sweetened coconut into finished batter.
BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES - Follow Master Recipe, substituting 1 cup packed light brown sugar for superfine sugar.
This is the old Wilton Roll Out Cookie Recipe
(from a cookie cutter package header, dated 1990)
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour one cup at a time mixing after each addition. The dough will be very stiff; blend last flour in by hand. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball in a circle approx. 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Use cutters a guide: dough should be only slightly thinner than cutter. Dip cutters in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet on top rack of oven for 6 - 7 minutes. or until cookies are lightly browned.
Since you don't have to chill this dough, it's perfect for when DD remembers just a bedtime that you're supposed to have cookies for her to take to class tomorrow. Over the years I've tried all sorts of variations -- replaced the vanilla with creme bouquet flavoring, lemon flavoring, added a dash of cinnamon - topped them right out of the oven with a candy melt disk, let the cookie heat will melt it so it can be spread across the cookie top. DH likes to turn them into sandwich cookies with peanut butter as his filling.
i also use the wilton recipe posted above, but i only use 1tsp of baking pwd, they keep there shape great and taste good too.
This is the old Wilton Roll Out Cookie Recipe
(from a cookie cutter package header, dated 1990)
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour one cup at a time mixing after each addition. The dough will be very stiff; blend last flour in by hand. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball in a circle approx. 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Use cutters a guide: dough should be only slightly thinner than cutter. Dip cutters in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet on top rack of oven for 6 - 7 minutes. or until cookies are lightly browned.
Since you don't have to chill this dough, it's perfect for when DD remembers just a bedtime that you're supposed to have cookies for her to take to class tomorrow. Over the years I've tried all sorts of variations -- replaced the vanilla with creme bouquet flavoring, lemon flavoring, added a dash of cinnamon - topped them right out of the oven with a candy melt disk, let the cookie heat will melt it so it can be spread across the cookie top. DH likes to turn them into sandwich cookies with peanut butter as his filling.
ditto on this one!! I LOVE the Wilton roll out cookie recipe! I use nothing else! 
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%
