Making Memories Finding Cookie Cutters Cake Decorations & Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipes

Making Rolled Sugar Cookies With Kids Makes a Great Holiday Baking Tradition & Cherished Memories

When the holidays come around and the children are on Christmas vacation, there is one holiday activity that is a must in my family, and that is to make Christmas cookies. 

Making memories with my loved ones while making Christmas cookies or some other kid-friendly holiday baking is one of my favorite pastimes, and it is a great way to add some extra holiday fun for the kids to keep busy with. 

Keep the kids busy, having loads of fun, making cut out sugar cookies.

Image Copyright © 11/09/2011 by A.K. Love

I have been trying to find the perfect light, fluffy, and soft cut out (rolled sugar) cookie recipe just for the occasion, and no offense Betty Crocker, but your pre-made rolled sugar cookies mix in a bag just doesn't cut it. To be honest, what I'm really looking for is the secret to the lofthouse sugar cookies.

However, Betty Crocker, I happen to like your 1986 recipe (slightly altered) as the sugar cookies come out pretty soft and quite delicious. I've included my slightly altered version of it for those of you who would like to check out the recipe that made those delicious looking rolled sugar cookies in the picture above. Jump to make this deliciously soft cut out cookie recipe below. I think they come pretty close to the Lofthouse cookies. Though I am still in search of the exact Lofthouse sugar cookie copycat.

Finding the Perfect Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

In search of the perfect copycat lofthouse rolled sugar cookie recipe, I image Googled (I searched on Google Images), trying to find what looked to be the perfect sugar cookies. After looking through several sugar cookie images I came across a San Diego food blog called Kirbie's Cravings. 

The sugar cookies pictured looked pretty light and fluffy so I decided to check out the cookie recipe, which turned out to be that ever so popular recipe for sugar cookies on allrecipes.com. 

However, it came with a story about how hard it was for Kirbie to find just the right sprinkles and other cake decorations to explain away the naked look of the Christmas cookies pictured, and the question of where to find whatever sprinkles and other cake decorations you're looking for.

As I finished reading the blog, the answer to Kirbie's question about where to find cookie sprinkles and cake decorations for the naked sugar cookies came to me with help of my memory of a cut out cookie nightmare before Christmas I had experienced a few years back. 

Cookie Nightmare Before Christmas

It truly was a cookie nightmare before Christmas, as it was around 8pm Christmas Eve, and I still had what seemed to be a million and one tasks to do before Christmas morning. Christmas cookies for Santa needing to be baked of course were one of those tasks. 

Luckily I had prepared the cookie dough early that morning and had it chilling in the refrigerator. See, I thought everything would be perfect if I prepped the cookie dough well beforehand. This was going to be the first time I made cut out Christmas cookies with my kids, so naturally it was going to be a memorable experience for us all. 

Before you ask, I swear I didn't use the blueberry muffin mix in the cookies. I was making muffins for breakfast that morning. However, I did use the powdered sugar underneath the muffin mix.

Copyright © 11/09/2011 by A.K. Love

I used a rolled sugar cookie recipe from my old Betty Crocker cookbook that happens to have loads of cookie recipes. One sugar cookie recipe in particular looked like it would be the perfect rolled sugar cookie recipe. The sugar cookies looked light and fluffy, almost like the round lofthouse sugar cookies you buy at the grocery store that have gobs of frosting and sprinkles on them. 

Since I happen to like the softness and the taste of the lofthouse sugar cookies, with a little less frosting of course, I decided that was the rolled sugar cookie recipe to try out. 

It was actually quite an easy cookie recipe, and very versatile. You could make the dough for either rolled or drop sugar cookies with just a little more or less of the dry ingredients already being used. 

However, I failed to remember until after I had my rolled sugar cookie dough all chilled and ready to go, that rolled sugar cookies generally require you to have cookie cutters, and I did not have any Christmas cookie cutters.

Realizing that my kids wouldn't really get the fun of pressing the cookie cutters into the cookie dough, I decided I was not going to let some cookie cutters keep me from making great memories with my children. Besides, Santa needs his sugar cookies, right? 

I was determined that my kids would have at least some fun by being able to decorate Christmas cookies shaped like trees, stars, candy canes, gingerbread men, and snowmen. 

So I pulled out a butter knife and started trying to cut the shapes into the dough. You know, I think there is a reason why you press cookie cutters into the dough, and that is because cookie dough does not really cut. Well at least this cookie dough didn't cut, as when I tried to cut it, it would tear and I'd end up with broken cookies. 

It took forever to cut cookies without cookie cutters, but I managed to figure out how to cut out cookies without cookie cutters. I had to cut Christmas cookie shapes by pressing the knife into the dough a little section of the design at a time slowly making the shape I wanted.

My Christmas cookies may not have looked like the perfect snowmen, Christmas trees, gingerbread men, candy canes, or stars that you get from cookie cutters, but my kids had a blast frosting and decorating them anyway, and as I mentioned earlier the cookies tasted quite delicious and were really quite soft. 

The holiday season can be chaotic enough without some kind of nightmare before Christmas. As I did not want to ever have to cut out cookies with a butter knife again, I set my mind to find a set of cookie cutters. Not only did I find a great starter set of cookie cutters at a really great price, but I also found a few stores that answer Kirbie's question on where to find the cookie sprinkles and cake decorations of your choice. 

Kirbie's naked cookies. Source: Kirbie's Cravings

7 Stores To Get Cookie Cutters, Cake Decorations, Flavorings, Food Colorings, & More

Here's a few stores that offer a variety of decorations, cookie cutters, and other great baking supplies. Check them out! 

Let's start with Wal-Mart, which has FREE 2-Day Shipping on select orders totaling $35 or more. Wal-Mart supercenters have two sections to find sprinkles, frostings, colorings, and many other cookie and cake decorations. The first section is the baking aisle, and the second is the craft baking aisle.

Another store that offers cookie decorations is Hobby Lobby. Just ask where the baking craft section is and you'll find plenty of baking decorations to choose from.

Michaels is another store where you can get your cookie decorating needs. Like Hobby Lobby, Michaels' craft baking section has a nice selection of cake decorations.  Cookie sprinkles being one.

Supermarkets may be a little more expensive but many times will offer at least a few kinds of sprinkles and other cake and cookie decorating supplies.

If you can wait for a bit, you can order your cake decorations, cookie cutters, and other baking supplies through Amazon. The selection of cake and cookie decorations as well as baking supplies seem endless.

Ebay surprisingly, also has great decorations for your naked rolled sugar cookies. I guess that old EBay commercial that says, 'Whatever "IT" is you're looking for E-Bay has "IT,"' was right! Including cookie sprinkles and other cake decorations.

You can also find cookie and cake decorations at specialty online baking supply stores such as ColorKitchenFoods.com, NaturalCandyStore.com, Wilton.com and several others. The first two stores I just mentioned offer cake sprinkles and cookie decorations made with natural food coloring.

Rolled Sugar Cookies From Betty Crocker's 1986 Cookbook (Slightly Altered)
By A.K.Love November 18, 2021.	Save and Print
Soft, delicious, and easy rolled sugar cookies!	Yields:  Approximately 5 dozen cookies. Prep Time:  2 to 3 hrs. Cook time: 8 to 12 minutes. Total Time: 3 hrs 12 minutes.
Course: Appetizer, Grain, Dessert, Snack. Cuisine: American, Australian, European	Ingredients
Directions Mix powdered sugar, margarine, vanilla, almond extract and egg until smooth and creamy. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Combine the flour mixture in with the powdered sugar mixture then cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Divide dough into halves. For thicker cookies roll to 3/16 inch thick on a lightly floured cloth covered board and cut into desired shapes with 2-to 2 ½-inch thick cookie cutters. Otherwise roll the dough halves to ¼ inch thick on a lightly floured cloth covered board and cut using any cookie cutters. If desired sprinkle with granulated sugar. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 6-8 minutes depending on the thickness. The cookie edges will be a light golden color when they are done. For frosted or decorated sugar cookies, omit the granulated sugar, and let cool on a wire cooling rack before frosting.	2 cups powdered sugar 1 cup margarine or butter softened (I use unsalted butter which gives the cookies a better taste) 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon almond extract 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda (instead of baking soda and cream of tartar you can substitute 2 teaspoons of baking powder, which is what I used. * If using self-rising flour, omit baking soda and cream of tartar.) 1 teaspoon cream of tartar Granulated sugar (optional for sprinkling on top)
rolled sugar cookies, cut out cookie recipe, holiday baking
Copyright © 11/18/2021