Sugar Cookie Bars Recipe | If You Give a Blonde a Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

How to fancy up sugar cookie mix? ›

Mix in tasty ingredients

Take plain sugar cookies up a notch with exciting mix-ins like chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, toasted chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or M&M's. Add these after blending your butter and egg into the sugar cookie mix.

Easy Add-In: After creating the dough according to the sugar cookie mix instructions, Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream to create a tangier, cakier and all-around more flavorful cookie. Flavor Twist: For a punchier twist, swap the water in the sugar cookie mix instructions for rum, bourbon or coffee liqueur.

Roll Cookies in Fancy Sugar

For this technique, you'll want to decorate your cookies before baking. We recommend using decorative sugar (also known as colored sanding sugar), Turbinado sugar (coarse golden sugar) or pearl sugar (coarse clear sugar). It all sounds super fancy but it's really very easy!

If the baked cookies taste a bit bland (and if the dough is fairly soft and receptive to additions), add salt and/or spices to the remaining dough before baking. If, on the other hand, they're a bit salty for your taste, try rolling the dough balls in sugar before baking.

Topping each cookie dough ball with more chips, nuts, cinnamon, or whatever your heart desires, will help make them picture perfect and give them extra flavor and texture. When doing this with chips or nuts, press them into the top of the ball of dough close together, and they'll spread apart as the cookie bakes.

Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown. Adding too little sugar can affect the taste and texture of cookies. Adding too much can cause them to be brittle. Take your time creaming the sugar and butter together at the beginning.

You may not have used enough water, margarine or egg. Be sure to measure ingredients carefully.

Roll on floured surface until 1/4 inch thick. Cut with 2 1/2-inch cutter. Bake 8 to 11 minutes.

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

How do you keep sugar cookies from bleeding in color? ›

Work several cookies at a time, filling in the base color, then going back to the first cookie filled and applying the second color. This will allow the base coat a few minutes to set before applying the second color. Thin the icing colors out to as close to the same consistency as possible.

My cookies are too pale.

Use fresh baking soda which promotes browning (make sure there's some sort of acid in the dough, see above). Don't use an insulated baking sheet. Increase baking temperature and time slightly. Add a 1/4 cup additional sugar to the dough.

Start by outlining the cookie with piping-consistency icing in any color you choose. Then, use flooding-consistency icing to fill the outlined area, starting by flooding around the edges and working your way towards the center. If the flooding is inconsistent in thickness, redistribute the wet icing with a toothpick.

Place the icing in a piping bag, snip off the tip, and outline the cookies. You can also use a reusable piping bag with a small piping tip. Fill in the outlines on the cookies with the flood icing and then use a toothpick to fill in any little gaps. Add sprinkles for more dimension and design.

Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon flour onto work surface; coat all sides of dough with flour. With rolling pin, roll out dough 1/4 inch thick, adding additional flour as needed to prevent sticking.