Snowflake Sugar Cookies

These snowflake sugar cookies are the perfect cutout Christmas cookies that bake up soft, hold their shape, and taste buttery & sweet just as they should. Decorate them with a super simple royal icing without egg whites, lots of sprinkles, and anything else that would make them festive enough to leave out for Santa! These truly are the best cutout sugar cookies that hold their shape but also have a delicious soft, buttery texture that's good enough to eat on their own. I hope these make your christmas cookie to-bake list this year! And if you're in need of some Christmas cookie gift box ideas, I have an entire post dedicated to one here!

For more holiday cookie recipes, try Soft Gingerbread Cutout Cookies, Chocolate Peppermint Kiss Cookies, and Salted Caramel Christmas Linzer Cookies.

Ingredient Notes

• All-Purpose Flour: You'll need exactly 2 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour, but I beg of you please weigh your flour to 270g with a scale. Trust me, it's worth it. Without a scale, you run the risk of adding too much flour, which leads to dry crumbly cookies, or you'll add too little flour and your cookies will spread too much. 
• Leavener: I like to add ¼ teaspoon of baking powder to make them even softer, but they bake up just fine without it!
• Unsalted Butter: Since there are very few ingredients in sugar cookies, most of the flavor comes from the butter, which is why it is so so important to use high-quality unsalted butter. 
• Sugar: You'll need one whole cup of granulates sugar.
• Egg: You'll need just one egg. 
• Vanilla: I like to add a healthy pour of vanilla paste, but other great flavors include almond extract, lemon zest, and even warm spices.
• Powdered Sugar: You'll need about 1 ½ cups of powdered sugar for the royal icing.
• Meringue Powder: Meringue powder makes the royal icing a perfect pipeable consistency that will set in just a few minutes. 

See recipe card for full information on ingredients and individual quantities.

Step by Step Instructions

Here are step by step photos and instructions on how to make this snowflake sugar cookie recipe! For the full ingredient list and method, see the recipe card at the end of this post.

STEP 1: Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

STEP 2: Mix wet ingredients. In a bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes. Next, beat in the egg and vanilla.

STEP 3: Combine wet and dry. Scrape down the bowl and add in the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Do not over mix!

STEP 4: Shape and chill. Shape the dough into a flat disk and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to overnight.

STEP 5: Make snowflakes. On a lightly floured surface (or between two floured pieces of parchment paper), roll out ⅓ of the cookie dough to about ¼" thick. Keep the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge. Cut out as many snowflakes as you can with a cookie cutter. Shape the remaining cookie dough into a disk and refrigerate for a few minutes if has become too warm, then re-roll and continue cutting out until all dough is used up.

STEP 6: Freeze and bake. Place cookie dough on the prepared baking sheets about an inch apart and freeze for at least 15 minutes. Then, bake the cookies for about 10 minutes until barely golden around the edges. Allow to cool completely before decorating with royal icing.

All of the recipes on this blog are carefully developed with gram measurements so you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success. Volume measurements are extremely inaccurate and leave room for significant errors. Not all measuring cups are made equally, so your one cup of flour will be different from my one cup of flour. By providing precise measurements in grams (aside from minor ingredients, which are given in tsp/tbsp), you can make these recipes accurately and with less cleanup! All you need is this kitchen scale. 

If this still isn't enough to convince you, I have provided volume measurements in the recipe card. If you are interested in understanding the conversions, this is the best conversion chart.

But trust me, once you try baking in grams you'll never turn back!

Happy baking! x