Episode 16

This sugar cookie recipe is extremely easy to follow and uses ingredients most likely found in your kitchen – other than the icing and sprinkles. I made 15 heart cookies, 2 unicorns, 2 dinosaurs, a few stars, and a blob to taste test (it was the very last bit of my dough 🙂 )

I bought the heart cookie cutter and spatula set from Home Goods and think they would be adorable to give as gifts to friends and teachers! I’m having a hard time finding links to the Rae Dunn set, but I’m sure if you stroll through your local Home Goods you’ll find them. Then I walked next door to Target to buy the icing and found a unicorn and dinosaur cookie cutter and felt I needed to buy those as well….especially since if you read this post where I talk about the Nanacorn and Bubbasaur!

This recipe is very easy to follow and fairly easy to clean up – just throw it all in the dishwasher, wipe down the counter tops, and done! Bonus points if you have a dog who will eat any of the sprinkles that fall on the floor (see Lola in one of the pics below!)

I’d love to see your Valentine’s Day cookies – make sure to tag me, @toasttopostblog in them 🙂 Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Either using a hand mixture or stand mixer (use the paddle attachment,) beat the butter and sugar together on high speed for about 2 minutes. It should be completely smooth.
3. Add the vanilla, egg, and almond extract and beat on high speed until well combined. Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl and beat again if needed.
4. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined.
5. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Lightly flour parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (I use this and LOVE it!) With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. If the dough gets sticky, use more flour.
6. Layer the dough with parchment paper or the baking mat, cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
7. Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Use your cookie cutter to cut out the pieces of the dough.
8. Continue to re-roll the dough to make as many cookies as you can. At some point, you will need to use more flour. Mine started getting sticky around the second or third re-roll.
9. Arrange cookies on the baking sheet 3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.
10. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating. They can be stored in an air tight container and decorated the next day.

Icing

You can make your own icing, or use store bought. I used the following icing and mixed the blue Sparkle Gel with the white icing to make the light blue icing.

And then I used my favorite FANCY SPRINKLES for the sprinkles.

Use code MEAGAN15 for a 15% off discount at Fancy Sprinkles 🙂

I didn’t take any pictures of the unicorns or dinosaurs, but have videos of them. Head to my stories in Instagram to see 🙂

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Cheers – MP