These soft sugar cookies take just a few minutes to mix up, then get made into balls or just dropped on the pan. Literally, about 20 minutes start to finish for melt-in-your-mouth little goodies.
Special note: these are great to make with kids, as they are quick and easy to mix up and can be decorated any way they can dream up!
The ingredients can be found almost anywhere, carry easily on a boat and the whole recipe is designed to be made by hand without an electric mixer.
And while I added some green food coloring for Christmas, you can make them without and decorate with any type of candy, sprinkle or frosting that you have. A cute — and tasty — option is to crush a candy cane or two and top the tops of the dough balls in the “crumbs.”
For other holidays, you might make little orange balls for Halloween, pink cookies for Valentine’s Day and so on — the possibilities are pretty much endless.
The recipe easily double or triples and the number of cookies is highly dependent on how large they are (and how much dough any kids eat) — I like to make tiny bite-sized bits!
The only thing to watch out for is overbaking. They’ll become dry and unappetizing very quickly so err on the side of them being underdone.
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup canola (OR vegetable oil)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/8 cup sugar
- 1 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Food coloring (optional)
- Sugar for dusting (optional)
- Sprinkles or other decorating materials (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. and grease a cookie sheet.
- Mix egg, oil, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
- Add food coloring if using and mix well.
- Add flour, baking powder, salt and mix well. Dough will be soft.
Method 1:
- Make dough into balls, using about one tablespoon of dough per cookie. Place sugar in a small dish and dip the top of each ball into the sugar, then place on the cookie sheet, sugar side up, about 2″ apart.
Method 2:
- Drop dough by tablespoons onto the cookie sheet. Wet the bottom of a glass and dip it in the sugar, then press each cookie so it’s about 1/4″ thick.
- If preferred, decorate with sprinkles or anything else that can be baked.
- Bake about 6 minutes. Do NOT overbake.
- Remove from oven and let cookies sit for about 1 minute before removing to a plate or cooling rack. If making another sheet full, let cookie sheet cool before putting dough on it or the cookies will spread out too much.
- When cool, if desired, cookies may be frosted or decorated further.
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Cathy says
Is the the 3/8 cup sugar correct in the sugar cookie recipe? Or should it be 3/4? Thank you
Carolyn Shearlock says
I just double-checked with my handwritten copy. 3/8 IS correct. Thanks for asking!