Share your sugar cookie secrets with me....

[Remudamom]

I just whipped up a batch of dough for sugar cookies that are supposed to be good for shapes. It was in the frig long enough. The minute I take it out and roll it, cut out my shapes it's so warm that there is no shape left once I ease it up off the counter and onto my cookie sheet.

 

I'm so frustrated I almost broke my spatula in two. I might as well be making blob cookies as the gorgeous tree shapes with my new cookie cutter.

[Remudamom]

Bump, I know someone out there knows why my dough won't hold shape. More flour???

[Melissa in St Louis]

Take a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer --then set it on top of your dough once it is rolled out. The cold metal of the pan will "suck out" the heat that the dough has picked up just from being handled.

 

Are your problems mostly rolling it out? Or cutting it? Or do they lose shape once you bake them? I'll try my best to help!:)

 

Melissa in St Louis

[Melissa in St Louis]

Oops. Forgot to say: leave the frozen metal pan on the dough for 5 minutes or so and then it should be chilled aenough again to work with!

[KJB]

A couple of hints:

 

1. Roll the dough and cut it out on the cookie sheet so you don't have to move the cut cookie. After you press in the cookie cutter, move the dough surrounding the cookie away from the shape.

 

2. Flour your cookie cutters generously.

 

3. Keep the dough cold when you're not using it and only have out what you are working with at the very moment you need it.

 

4. If you are lucky enough to have a rolling pin made of ceramic or something that will chill, stick it in the freezer. Otherwise, flour your wooden pin generously.

 

5. Flour your hands and add more flour to the dough if it gets too sticky.

 

6. If you have to move a cookie with a spatula, use a cold metal spatula.

 

Hope some of these help! Do you have horsey cookie cutters? I'd love to find some for my aunt.

[Remudamom]

I can't move the cookie shapes from the counter to the cookie sheet. I'll roll some out on the sheet and cut. I don't have any horsie shapes, just trying to make some ^&$% Christmas trees.

[newlifemom]

I wish I could help you 'cause I love ya so much. I think the advice you rcvd sounds good though. I am going to use it myself. My only advice for you is in the flavor itself. Add nutmeg. Just a pinch. OMdang!(Pittsburgh speak) it is so good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, how ya smellin'?:D

[KJB]

by then the dough gets too warm. Did you chill the dough before you started? If I don't chill it overnight, I find it really tough to work with.

 

Hope your trees turn out. You can make up a lot of ground with a good frosting job. Not that I'm suggesting a cover-up or anything.:D

 

Good Luck!

[emeraldjoy]

Costco!

[Melissa in St Louis]

Are you trying to roll them out too thin? Mine are maybe 1/4-1/8 inch thick.

 

Try rolling our dough, chilling with cold pan, push cookie cutter into dough, then put spatula UNDER cutter and cookie - don't remove cutter till it is on the pan.

 

 

Did that make sense??:confused:

[Vida Winter]

Do you have a wooden cutting board? I like to use a good sprinkling of flour on one of those and then roll the dough out a little at a time. Work quickly and if it's sticky use a bit more flour and turn the dough over & keep rolling on the other side. You want a very think layer of flour to stay on each side of the dough. On your rolling pin too.

 

Keep the rest of the dough in the fridge until you're ready to roll it out, reform the scraps into a ball and re-refrigerate them. A neat gadget I got this year is a dough scraper. I got it for bread making but then found a thousand other uses for it. If the link works here is one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Oxo-Good-Grips-Pastry-Scraper/dp/B00004OCNJ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1229461951&sr=8-1

[MgoBlue]

parchment paper that you can bake in the oven. You cut the cookies out on the parchment, then gently tear the leftover dough away from the parchment/cookies. This is the only way I've found that works.

HTH, paula

[JFSinIL]

I chill dough thoroughly, take out only what dough I need for one batch and keep the rest in the 'fridge. Use lots of flour and a wooden board and wooden rolling pin. My recipe is mostly shortening with just a tad of butter for flavor - shortening seems to hold up better than a butter dough.

 

Did I mention LOTS of flour??? And a flour a thin spatula or knife to slide under the cookie to left it off the board, unless it sticks to the cutter and I can whack tue cutter on the cookie sheet to free the cookie.

 

And I use LOTS and LOTS of flour.

[Carol in Cal.]

If you use a lot of flour, your cookie dough will get tougher and tougher as the proportions change.

 

Use powdered sugar instead. It works just as well as a release layer, and the dough just gets sweeter and sweeter, which is a good thing!

 

I think maybe your dough is not quite cold enough. It has to be almost stiff to hold its shape. I can't achieve that unless I chill it overnight, preferably for 24 hours, in the top shelf of the refrigerator. This is one of those things that it's hard to learn out of a book--dough consistencies are like that. I can always tell (because of having done this so much) whether the dough will hold its shape or whether it's too warm just by breaking off a piece from the batch. I think that you should cover and chill it for 24 hours, and then call a friend who has done this a lot to look at it with you. It's like making pie crust. Once you learn it by doing it with someone experienced, you always know how it should be. Before that, it is so mysterious.

 

I've seen that idea of putting parchment on the sheet and rolling the dough out on it, but I have not tried it. It seems like it would work well, though.

[MUJLBE]

I take little blobs of dough and roll them between 2 pieces of waxed paper. Then I peel off top layer and cut the cookies then flip them onto the pan using the bottom layer. Not elegant but it works. I do get wrinkles in the dough from the paper but they disappear in the oven.

 

Susan

[Stacey in MA]

Why didn't I ever think of that? I'm going to try it out! It seems like you'd spend much less time fighting with the dough, which in turn would keep it from softening, sticking, and losing it's shape.

 

I have another addition....this is only going to make the first problem (sticking) worse, BUT it makes an AWESOME cookie! Add 4oz of cream cheese to the dough when blending the wet ingredients. They come out so yummy! ;-p

 

Good luck! - Stacey in MA

[kewb]

I love these tips. I have never successfully made sugar cookies. Even the slice and bake thwart my efforts.

[Guest Katia]

These tips are all amazing to me. Wow. Personally, I've been making cut-out sugar cookies for around 30 years now, have never chilled the dough, etc. and they turn out just fine.

 

I would ask two things:

 

What recipe are you using? That makes a difference. I have two recipes that work: one really good and one so-so. Others I've tried just don't work. The one that works the best has cream of tartar.

 

What elevation are you at? The higher above sea level the more difficult to make sugar cookies. Really. In Ohio or Iowa I can make them easily; in Kansas it was difficult and in the panhandle of Oklahoma I just gave up!

 

Well, that's all the expertise I have. I'll try some of these other tricks that were posted as all I have ever done is just mix up the dough, roll-out on a floured surface, then cut out with cookie cutters, transferred them to a cookie sheet and baked.

[JudoMom]

BTW, how ya smellin'?:D

 

:smilielol5:

[lynn]

I get the dough from the blue, pillsbury tube, in the refrigeration section.

[Carol in Cal.]

I take little blobs of dough and roll them between 2 pieces of waxed paper. Then I peel off top layer and cut the cookies then flip them onto the pan using the bottom layer. Not elegant but it works. I do get wrinkles in the dough from the paper but they disappear in the oven.

 

Susan

 

Masa Harina mix sticks like crazy, but I press between sheets of waxed paper and it works like a charm.

[Sunshyne]

We cut our shapes and put them on parchment paper. Then, just slide the parchment paper right onto the cookie sheet and bake. It works so well, and is so easy!

[PiCO]

I chill dough thoroughly, take out only what dough I need for one batch and keep the rest in the 'fridge. Use lots of flour and a wooden board and wooden rolling pin. My recipe is mostly shortening with just a tad of butter for flavor - shortening seems to hold up better than a butter dough.

 

Did I mention LOTS of flour??? And a flour a thin spatula or knife to slide under the cookie to left it off the board, unless it sticks to the cutter and I can whack tue cutter on the cookie sheet to free the cookie.

 

And I use LOTS and LOTS of flour.

 

I second using lots of flour. Works for me, and my cookies are nice and tender (unless the kids are helping me- the dough gets tough if it's handled too much.)

[suzf242]

Is your kitchen hot? I keep my kitchen cool -- around 60. I chill my dough for about an hour and roll directly on the counter, which is also cool, so I only need to use a little flour. I never have any problems.

 

Take care,

Suzanne

[plansrme]

I do this also, with slightly chilled dough, in small batches. The best thing for me, however, is to use the recipe from the butter-flavored Crisco sticks. I'm so embarrassed to buy it that I hide it under fresh veggies in my grocery cart (and I'm serious about that), but it makes an excellent sugar cookie.

 

Teri

[Jami]

We cut our shapes and put them on parchment paper. Then, just slide the parchment paper right onto the cookie sheet and bake. It works so well, and is so easy!

 

 

Parchment paper here too. Works like a charm. :)

[Raders Fan]

Right after you make your dough, roll it out between sheets of waxed paper. Put your rolled out dough in the freezer. Repeat with the remaining dough. by the time you're done rolling out the dough, your first sheets of cookie dough will be chilled enough to cut out.

 

Very easy. I've been using this method to make hundreds of sugar cookies each year.

 

Good luck.

 

Jennifer

[Faith]

It's probably the recipe. Would you share it? Sounds just like the one I used today with NO success and the EXACT same problem. I ended up with drop cookies that taste fantastic.