Perfect Freshly Milled Sugar Cookies
Sugar cookie recipes are a staple for all bakers especially those who love to use freshly milled flour. These freshly milled cut-out sugar cookies are the perfect Christmas cookies but can be made anytime. This recipe does require some chilling but they are worth the wait so they can be rolled out and cut into shapes. The best sugar cookie recipe needs to have homemade buttercream frosting.
What you will need:
Grain mill (optional): Manual or electric. I have an electric * Nutrimill Harvest. Like always, in all of my freshly milled flour recipes, you can use any store-bought stone ground flour or all-purpose white flour. I try to make my recipes as flexible as possible but please note: changing to different grains always gives different results and flavor. Grain mills and stone ground flour are not always available or fusible. Use what you have!
Hard or soft white wheat kernels. Soft White wheat has a lovely mild flavor, this is the base for a cookie. If you don’t have any white on hand spelt is a suitable substitute.
White sugar. This is what will sweeten our freshly milled cookie.
Butter. This is what will bring that flakey texture to our cookie. You want your butter softened at room temperature (not melted).
Egg yolks. Yolks help our cookies be light and smooth.
Sour Cream. More fat and flavor! This is the secret ingredient to this recipe.
Baking powder & baking soda: this is the lifting power of our cookies.
Salt. Salt will help balance the sweetness of our cookie.
Pure vanilla extract. To bring richness and flavor.
Ziploc bag- To scoop dough into for chilling.
Stand mixer or hand mixer. Creaming butter is no joke and using one will save your time and wrists.
Rolling pin: To roll out your dough.
Cookie cutters: I love making a simple round but I do which it up to some fun shapes for the holidays!
What you will need to make the Sugar Cookie Frosting:
Butter- Buttercream frosting calls for lots of butter!
Vanilla Extract- This can be swapped for almond or any other extract you like
Salt- optional if using unsalted butter
Egg yolk- Optional but trust me it is worth adding!
Powdered Sugar- To add sweetness and fluff to our frosting.
Cream/ Milk- Just a dash to thin the frosting.
How to make Freshly Milled Sugar Cookies
This recipe makes a lot of cookies! Feel free to half the recipe or you can bake half and freeze the rest of the dough for another day like I do!
First, you will need a large bowl. Cream together your butter softened at room temperature, and sugar. When creaming them together you want it to be a fluffy and whipped texture. You can use a hand mixture or stand mixer for this step. Once your butter and sugar is creamed you can slowly add in one yolk at a time. Continue mixing until completely combined. Mix in sour cream and vanilla.
Now it is time to focus on your dry ingredients. Measure out your wheat kernels and grind on the finest setting. Make sure you grain a little extra so you have some to dust on your work surface when it comes to time to roll out and cut the dough. You can store it in a ziplic bag and stick it in the freeze to maintain its freshness.
In a separate large mixing bowl
your freshly milled flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Whisk until combined. Scoop one cup at a time into the butter mixture and on a low speed to combine the ingredients. If you are using a stand mixer you can use a paddle attachment. Once everything is incorporated and smooth you will have a thick batter. Scoop it into a large ziploc bag and chill dough for 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator. Letting these cookies chill helps the flour soak up the butter and cold butter helps get the best results for cut-out cookies
Once your cookies have chilled you can preheat the oven to 350. Take them out of the bag and roll them out on a lightly floured surface with the freshly milled flour you tucked away. For the perfect cookies get the rolled-out dough down to an even 1/3 inch thickness and grab your favorite cookie cutters. These cookies do expand a little bit, be mindful of that when choosing shapes.
Bake for 13 minutes at 350 until the rims of the bottom are golden brown. Bake time really does depend on your oven so check the last minute or so to prevent them from overcooking.
Once you take them out of the oven let them stay on the hot cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
While the cookies are cooling we can move on to the frosting.
Don’t forget to PIN this recipe!
I am a firm believe sugar cookie recipes need a complimentary frosting recipe. so let’s jump into it.
How to make Butter Cream Frosting
Printable recipe down below! In a medium bowl add your softened at room temperature butter and one cup of powdered sugar. Using an electric mixer slowly add in one more cup of powdered sugar until all are in the bowl. Add in the rest of your ingredients. Depending on how thick or thin you want the frosting add one tsp of milk at a time until you have reached the desired thickness. Be sure to stop the mixer in between steps and scrap the bottom of the bowl. These are all simple ingredients and you don’t want any left behind.
When you bake cookies (especially soft cookies) and frost them the same day you must let them completely cool before frosting. The butter In the frosting will melt and slide right off if you don’t! You can add food coloring to the frosting and sprinkles to your cookies to jazz them up.
These freshly milled classic sugar cookies are perfect for the holiday season and special occasions. That includes the random Sundays you really just want a perfect freshly milled cookie. I hope you love this go-to recipe as much as my family does. Happy Baking!
Freshly Milled Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Grain Mill
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Large bowl
- 2 Ziploc bag
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Cookie Cutter
Ingredients
- 6.5 cups Freshly Milled Soft White Wheat (Extra for rolling out)
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 3/4 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3/4 cup Butter softened
- 1 cup Sugar
- 3 Egg yolks
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream
- 1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Cream together butter and sugar.
- Add Egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla. Let mix until completely combined
- Measure out 4.5 cups of soft white wheat berries and grind in grain mill on finest setting. 6.5 cups will be for cookies and 1/4 cups is for rolling out the dough after chilling. You can put in zipoc bag and put in freezer to maintain freshness.
- Add baking powder, baking soda, and salt to flour and whisk until combined. Add one cup of dry ingredients at a time to the butter mixture until dough is completely combined.
- Spoon dough into a large ziploc bag and put in the fridge to chill for 4 hours (or overnight).
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- dust work surface with left over flour. Roll out dough to 1/3 thickness and cut desired shapes with cookie cutter.
- Bake at 350 for 13 minutes, let stand on cookie sheet for 10 mins before transfering to wire rack.
Sugar Cookie Frosting
Equipment
- 1 Large bowl
- 1 Stand or hand mixer
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Salted butter softened
- 3 cups Powdered sugar
- 2 tsp Milk or cream
- 1/2 tsp Pure vanilla extract
- 1 Egg yolk
- Dash of salt (opintional)
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugar slowly adding one cup of powdered sugar at a time.
- Add milk, vanilla, egg yolk,and salt (optional)
- Mix until smooth. Add mmore milk to thin and more powdered sugar to thicken.
Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
- 1 Hand or Stand Mixer
- 1 Large bowl
Ingredients
- 1 cup Butter softened
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 Egg yolk (optional)
- 6 Cups Icing Sugar
- 1-2 Tbsp Cream or Milk
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix until combined and fluffy.
Like this recipe? Be sure to check out my other recipes below!
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