Easiest Way to Roll and Cut Sugar Cookies

Do we all remember a time in our lives when the directions told us to lightly flour a surface but then, no matter how much we floured the surface, whatever we were rolling was determined to stick to it. 

The worst. All of your dreams about pretty baked goods go right out the window. 

But no more! At least for sugar cookies. 

Roll out sugar cookies have a higher percentage of dry ingredients compared to their wet ingredients. This means that the dough holds together nicely both when cut and when baked. 

But there is a secret to get your shapes to stay even prettier and that's chilling you dough before cutting. 

Some recipes don't require chilling from a baking stand point - the dough will not spread once baked no matter what. If your recipe is like this yay! However, I still recommend chilling at least a little bit, and this is why.

Dough is much easier to handle when chilled. It is firmer and so will hold its shape when sliced with a cutter and transferred over to your baking sheet. It can be a subtle change for simple shapes like circles or squares but if you have complicated or thin shapes, like a wine glass, the delicate sections will hold their shape when you move the cookie. 

Now, you don't have to kill your arm muscles rolling out large balls of chilled dough. No! Instead, roll your dough before you chill it. 

Once your dough is mixed and starting to pull away from the bowl - divide it up and roll it to your desired thickness between two pieces of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Then slide it into the fridge and chill it while you clean up or prepare your icing. 

Not only will it chill faster when it is rolled out and thinner but, once you are ready to cut, you just need to slide it back onto the counter and remove the top layer of plastic wrap or parchment paper and cut away! 

When you are finish you can just whisk everything into the trash. No floury mess to clean up. Easy peasy! 

Did you already know this trick?