If you enjoy tender, buttery, yet crisp sugar cookies with a sandy texture, you will really love these old-fashioned sugar cookies. They are so good as is without any icing. Christmas is not the same without these old-fashioned sugar cookies.
Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C) for a conventional oven. Lower temperature by 20 degrees if you have a convection oven
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Position your oven racks, 3rd from the top and another one 3rd from the bottom
Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside
Place butter, granulated sugar, and icing sugar in a mixing bowl or a stand mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment. Cream them on medium speed until fluffy and pale. Scrape the side of the bowl as needed
Lower the speed by one notch and add the egg a bit at a time until the batter is smooth. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add in the dry ingredients until they are well-combined. You have a very soft and sticky dough at this point
Shaping:
This cookie dough requires no chilling. Use a 1-tablespoon scoop to portion out the dough, about 2 inches apart as they will spread. I get about 12 cookies per baking sheet (depending on the size of your baking sheet)
Slightly dampen the bottom of a drinking glass or anything flat with water and then dip in granulated sugar to coat it
Flatten each cookie to about 1/4-inch (6mm) thickness. Dip the glass into sugar as needed
Baking:
Place on the racks you have positioned earlier. Bake for 13 minutes, rotating halfway, front to back, top to bottom so they are evenly baked
The cookies will be pale in color with just some light golden brown on the edge. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let cookies cool down on the baking sheets for about 2-3 minutes
Use an offset spatula to loosen the cookies and transfer to a cooling rack to let them cool down completely
Store:
Store the cool-down cookies in an air-tight container for about a week. I have also frozen some by putting them in a freezer bag, push all the air out and they can be kept frozen for about a month