Sugar Cookie Recipe

Here's my favorite sugar cookie recipe! 

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 Cups (4 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• zest of one large, or two small, lemons (optional - but awesome!)
• 6 cups flour

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until just incorporated. Add eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. Mix at low speed until fully blended. Then add flour, 2 cups at a time, starting on low speed and then increasing if necessary. You will know your dough has been mixed enough after all the flour has been added, when it pulls away from the sides of your bowl and clumps around the mixing paddle. 

Roll out to 1/4" thickness. You do not need to chill this recipe. Unless you prefer to use chilled dough, so that it is easier to handle when you are cutting it and moving it to your cookie sheet. 

Be sure to use parchment or Silpat mats on your baking sheets to keep your cookies from burning and spreading. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until cookies have just started to turn golden brown around the edges. For best results bake similar sized cookies on the same cookie sheet. If I have 2 cookie sheets in the oven at once, I like to swap them halfway though so they cook more evenly. I don't use my oven on convection as I find it cooks my cookies too fast and sometimes burns them. You may need to experiment with your oven for best results.

Yield will greatly depend on the size of the cookies you are making - but you will get about 3 dozen 3" cookies. You can halve this recipe for a smaller batch.

Happy Baking!