Harvest Sugar Cookies

A straightforward sugar cookie dough that rolls out clean, holds its cutter shape, and bakes up with a tender, slightly crisp edge. Butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and not much else. This is the kind of recipe you come back to every fall when the leaf and pumpkin cookie cutters come out of the drawer.

Creaming the butter and sugar until truly fluffy is what gives these cookies their light texture. Then beating in the eggs and vanilla until the mixture is airy sets up a dough that’s workable without being tough.

The 1-hour chill firms the dough so it rolls without sticking and the cutouts keep their edges in the oven instead of spreading into blobs. Roll to ¼ inch for cookies with some substance, not paper-thin snaps.

Kitchen Tips

• Flour the surface lightly. Too much flour worked into the dough makes the cookies dry and dense.
• Use a floured spatula to transfer cutouts to the baking sheet. Bare fingers stretch the shapes.
• Bake until just lightly browned at the edges. These firm up as they cool, so pulling them when they still look slightly underdone gives the softest result.
• Sprinkle with sugar before baking for a sparkly top, or cool completely and frost for decorated cookies.

Variations

• Add ½ teaspoon of almond extract along with the vanilla for a more complex, bakery-style flavor.
• Tint the frosting with fall colors (orange, red, yellow) for seasonal decorated cookies.
• Roll the dough a little thicker (⅓ inch) for softer, puffier cookies that stay chewy in the center.