Ingredients
- 1 small Orange for zesting
- 135 g Granulated sugar ⅔ cup
- 227 g Salted butter 1 cup, room temperature
- 1 large Egg room temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- ⅛ tsp Almond extract
- 300 g AP Flour
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
- Measure out your flour and add cinnamon. Mix to combine and set aside.
- Measure out your sugar into a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer.
- Zest about ½ a teaspoon of orange zest into the sugar, mixing it throughout. If you'd like the orange flavor to be stronger, rub the zest into the sugar. This will infuse the oils from the zest into the sugars.
- Add your butter to the sugar and zest and mix on medium-low for about 2-3 minutes, it will be creamy and a little fluffed.
- Add in your egg and extracts and mix until well combined. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl so everything is incorporated.
- Add your flour mixture in and mix on low until dough just comes together. It will look like big chunks. Use a rubber spatula or your hands to push the chunks together into a ball shape.
- Gather the dough and place it onto a piece of parchment or plastic cling wrap. Press out into a disc shape and wrap completely.
- Place your dough in the refrigerator to chill for a minimum of 1-2 hours to overnight.
- After your dough has chilled, remove from the refrigerator and line baking sheets with parchment or silpat mats.
- Flour your work surface generously. Let your dough sit out for about 5 minutes and the roll out to somewhere between ⅛" for thin cookies and ¼" for thicker cookies.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out your cookies, transferring to the baking sheet. Any scraps can be pushed together and rolled out to repeat.If decorating with icing cookies are ready to bake. If decorating with sprinkles, place sprinkles on pre-baking.
- Place your baking sheets in the refrigerator to chill for 30-60 minutes before baking. Preheat your oven before pulling them out of the refrigerator.
- Bake your cookies on the center rack of your oven for 10-12 minutes. The edges will be turning a light golden color. Remove from oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
- Allow cookies to cool before icing with buttercream or royal icing. Store in an airtight container. Cookies are freshest for about 3-5 days after baking. Enjoy!
Notes
This recipe is easily adaptable flavor wise. I have made this skipping the orange zest, almond extract and cinnamon to just make a vanilla sugar cookie. You could swap almond for vanilla to make an almond sugar cookie, you can use cardamom instead of cinnamon to make more of an orange cardamom cookie.