Gather dough into a ball and roll out on a lightly floured work surface.Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in thirds, beating until mostly combined after each addition.Cream softened butter and sugar together before adding the egg yolk and vanilla.Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.For ideas on what to do with that leftover egg white, check out my post What to Do With Leftover Egg Whites (I recommend my Mini Chocolate Sheet Cake).

Egg yolk: Because this is a small-batch recipe, you don’t need a whole egg, just the yolk.You’ll know your butter is the correct temperature if you can easily press an indentation into it with your finger but the butter around it still keeps its shape. Set your butter out on the counter 30 minutes to an hour before making the cookies. Softened butter: You must use softened butter in this recipe (not cold or melted).For best results, measure your flour with a scale (recommended) or the spoon and sweep method (stir the flour in your container to fluff it up and then spoon it into your measuring cup, sweep excess off with the flat of a knife). This means that if you over-measure your flour, you are going to have way too much and the dough is going to be crumbly and difficult to work with. In order to make a no-chill dough, it has a slightly higher flour content than normal cookie recipes. Spooned and leveled all-purpose flour: Properly measured flour is SO important in this recipe.Best of all, the dough doesn’t need to be chilled, so between making, baking, and cooling time, you can be decorating them in about an hour. The cookies are easy to make (though please read the recipe notes on flour measurement before starting), with a dough that is great to work with. The finished cookies come out just the right level of not-too-sweet (perfect since they’re meant to be smothered with frosting), with crunchy edges and slightly chewy centers. This recipe will make about a tray-and-a-half of sugar cookies, that’s 8 to 12-ish normal-sized cookies depending on how you cut them out. You still get to decorate some cookies (maybe with some spiked hot chocolate and a fire going in the background to keep you cozy while you work), but you don’t have to find homes for (or accidentally eat) a mountain of cookies when you’re done. It’s the perfect recipe if you love decorating cookies at Christmas but don’t have a lot of people around to feed them to. Today’s recipe is this sweet little batch of cut-out sugar cookies. This Small Batch of Cut-out Sugar Cookies recipe makes one-dozen sugar cookies and is quick and easy, with no dough chilling time required!

Christmas cookie recipes cut out