It has happened to every home baker: You place a pan of beautiful, cut-out sugar cookies into the oven only to have them spread and expand. After seven to 10 minutes, your hearts look like blobs and your snowflakes look like snowballs. With all the images of perfect sugar cookies out there, there has to be a trick to keep this from happening, right? There certainly is, and it all has to do with the type of fat you use (and how you treat it) in your sugar cookie dough.
The Takeout reached out to , the corporate pastry chef for JF Restaurants in New York, to see how this baker of beautiful things keeps her sugar cookies in perfect shape. "The fat in butter helps cookies spread as it melts," she said. "That's why re-chilling cut-out sugar cookies before baking is a crucial step — it solidifies the fat, allowing the cookies to hold their shape better [.
..] preventing excessive spreading during baking.
" Most sugar cookie recipes instruct the baker to chill the dough after it's mixed but before it's rolled out. Schlieben is suggesting to chill the cookies a second time, once the shapes are cut out from the dough. This means that, if you want perfectly shaped cookies, it's important to allow yourself enough time for two chilling periods.
However, if you're short on time, there is a . Butter is best but other fats work Classic sugar cookies require minimal ingredients, including butter, granulated sugar ( ), vanilla, flour, and eggs. Chef Sofia Schlieben added that, when it comes t.