Gloria, a friend of mine, provided me the recipe; she always bakes these cookies for her Christmas family gatherings. This recipe was one I wanted to add to my Recipe Box. Mace can be swapped out for nutmeg.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 5 mins |
| Additional Time: | 25 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 84 |
| Yield: | 7 dozen |
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground mace
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and mace. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or rub between your fingers. When butter pieces are no larger than pea size, stir in the egg, vanilla and heavy cream. Blend thoroughly. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 1/2 inches apart onto cookie sheets.
- Bake for 5 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges begin to brown. Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks. Cool completely before frosting.
- To make the frosting: In a medium bowl, beat the confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1 1/2 tablespoons of cream and salt until smooth and creamy. Spread on top of cooled cookies. Let the frosting dry before storing or serving.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 54 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 7 g |
| Cholesterol | 9 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 1 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 37 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 3 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I have made this recipe at least a dozen times – but it was at least 40 years ago. This recipe is word for word the same as the recipe we have used when our daughters were little and they are in their 50’s now. They wanted to touch base with their past and make decorated sugar cookies this year and pulled out the old cookie cookbook I had used and couldn’t believe that it is the very same recipe. The daughters loved the taste that mace gave to them and I noticed that one of the daughters had marked the recipe “this one” so they would be able to remember which one to use. It’s good that someone also cared enough for this recipe that they copied it into Allrecipes!
I’m not sure what happened, but I doubled the recipe and there was no where near enough liquid. I doubled the cream, and the dough was decent to work with, but the cookies tasted awful. Way too much salt I think? Perhaps the recipe should say unsalted butter or use salted butter and no additional salt? Either way, a waste of time and ingredients and a big mess to clean up for cookies no one would eat.
I read the review that gave one star so was a bit worried but I tried it any way. I made them with my 10 kids and they were awesome! These cookies will be our Christmas cookie from now on. The kids make cookies every yearand these were the best ever! I used fresh nutmeg instead od mace. Thanks for this awesome cookie.
fantastic! love that it is a pastry-like, yet soft sugar cookie. Have made them twice. Once with nutmeg, the next with a about a 1/2 tsp of almond extract (both times in place of the mace) Fabulous both ways! Love that it is not necessary to prepare ahead and allow to chill for hours before baking.
This was the worst cookie recipe I’ve ever tried. I followed the recipe to the T. I checked 3 times to make sure I didn’t write something down wrong. The dough seemed way to dry, almost to the point of crumbling, and they didn’t cook well either, I had to cook double the time to get them all the way through and the tops never even turned golden while the bottoms turned brown. The taste wasn’t horrible, but was pretty bland. Also the icing did not taste good at all, but it may just be more for decorating than for flavor. This is just my opinion from my experience with this recipe. I will not be using it again.
These cookies turned out really good. The best thing is that you don’t have to put the dough in the fridge and wait like you do with so many other sugar cookie recipes. We substitued whole milk for cream and garam masala for mace, just because that’s what we had on hand.
The dough was very good, but it was difficult to make. Do not make this if you’re in a hurry. I will try it again for sure!
Attention all those with Gluten intolerance: this recipe works very well with the ‘Featherlight’ flour mix (1 cup tapioca flour, 1 cup corn starch, 1 cup white rice flour, 1 tsp potato flour), a bit on the crumbly side so refrigerate until chilled and then serve chilled. nummy!
GREAT FOR KIDS. I make this recipe often with my two kids. The best part is that you don’t need to refridgerate the dough. I add a couple tablespoons extra flour to make sure the dough isn’t sticky. Really good frosted!
One of the best tasting sugar cookies I have tried; must be the cream 🙂 Mine did not brown after about 15 minutes in the oven, and that pan was pretty crispy (couldn’t get them off the pan without breaking birdy legs and umbrella handles), so I set my timer for 10 minutes and they were perfect. Didn’t brown but did puff up really nicely, I don’t like my sugar cookies too thin and crispy and these are the perfect combo of easy to travel but not rock hard. I had help from my 5-year old rolling and cutting, and we re-rolled enough times that by the last rolling there was quite a bit of extra flour in there! Still tender and good though. I did skip the icing this time because I had promised we could make paintbrush cookies; before baking, paint cookies with a mixture of an egg yolk, dash of water, and food coloring. Lots of fun but somewhat time consuming, good for rainy days! Then sprinkle with a little sugar and bake as usual. Next time I would like to try the icing though. I’ve never had a cookie recipe ask me to cut in the butter, so the texture seemed really weird; I had to work it a bit with my hands and then it rolled out smooth and perfect, easy to work with. Thanks for a great recipe!
These cookies were a big hit at my son’s class (K-5) Christmas party. Everyone loved ’em. They asked for more and more. I used a Christmas tree cookie cutter. I will make these over and over again. Thank you for the recipe 🙂
After tons of searching I must say this is the “best” sugar cookie recipe!! My 7 yr old and I had a great time making them and they taste FABULOUS!! THANKS! =]
Delicious soft sugar cookie! Dough is very easy to roll out and work with. I love that that you don’t have to chill the dough before rolling out!
These weren’t that good. I won’t be making them again. There must be better recipes out there…
I gave this recipe 1 star because the dough taste great. I decided to make these cookies as my 2year old sons first cookie experience. It was a disaster. The dough came together alright. When I put it out onto the counter (which had plenty of flour on it) and rolled it out, it kept sticking to the rolling pin (that I had also prepared). I rolled what I could and then scraped it up and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Got it back out and it rolled a little bit better. When we went to cut out cookies they wouldn’t come up, well they did come up as blobs b/c they still stuck to the counter. I ended up using another recipe from King Arthur Flour. Those turned out great. If you do want to use this recipe I might suggest using more flour or less butter.
My 4 yr. old and I made this tonight. It was so easy and fun. The dough was very easy to work with and super easy to cut out shapes with. They turned out delicious. Thanks!
This is my new favorite sugar cookie recipe… so easy to make, so easy to handle and cut effortlessly. It baked up beautifuly and everyone loved them!!! 10 stars!!
I made this recipe twice. The first time i subbed nutmeg for the mace. They were heavenly! Definitely my new favorite sugar cookie recipe. The second time I used fat-free half and half instead of cream and 1/2 c of sugar, 1/2 c of splenda. I had to bake a little longer (10 minutes). Not as good as the original, but still quite tasty.
The only bad thing about this recipie is it is not 84 servings. It is CRULE to stop there:). But they are Amazing. I didn’t have mace.. but they still turned out fantastic. My family of 6 had every last one of them finished within the hour.
A more than 5 star sugar cookie!! The dough was easy to work with (I made it beforehand and chilled it in the fridge until I needed it), and survived a pack of kids armed with cookie cutters. The flavor is superb- the heavy cream adds SO much flavor to these cookies. I substituted a couple of generous shakes of cinnamon (about a tsp.) for the mace. I would suggest whisking the egg in a bowl with the vanilla before adding- I cracked mine into the bowl, and the yolk took some mushing up to get it incorporated. This will be THE sugar cookie recipe we use from now on!
These cookies are WONDERFUL. The dough is so sturdy and easy to handle: pops right out of the cookie cutters. I subbed nutmeg for the mace and the result almost had a flavor reminiscent of eggnog. My cookies were cut small and I baked for SIX minutes – was perfect.