Betz's Good Sugar Cookies

These cookies are WONDERFUL!! I would recommend this recipe to anyone looking for a light and not overly sweet sugar cookie. I read all the reviews before I made these cookies, and all of the negative reviews are ridiculous. So here's a little advice to those people: Everyone should know that a recipe is not set in stone, and never complete. Every recipe needs to be adjusted according to personal taste, and most importantly, elevation and humidity. When baking it is always necessary to pay attention to the amount of flour you're adding to things - and always add flour/dry indredients slowly, as more often than not, you will need add more or less than what is indicated on your recipe. To those who said this dough was gooey and hard to work with, you will probably need to stick to the pre-made dough in the refridgerated section of your grocery store. Because if you had ever worked with dough that would need to be rolled out, you would know that if the dough is gooey before you put it in to be refridgerated, it will still be gooey when it comes time to work with it. Use common sense and add more flour. If it is dry and crumbly, add a little milk and stop adding flour. Sugar cookie doughs are supposed to be soft, but shouldn't stick to your hands. This is one of the best sugar cookie recipes I've come across in a long time!

I've now tested this recipe twice. It definitely does need more flour for consistency. The taste is overall pleasant, not too sweet. As for some of the other comments about sticky dough, a little stickiness is not bad. I suggest refigerating for overnight before use. Refrigeration hardens the dough (and removes some of the stickiness). You don't want your dough to be non-sticky before refrigeration. That will mean you have too much flour in the batter. I also suggest that you refrigerate any cut cookies until ready for baking because as the dough gets warm, it becomes too pliable. Also, the more flour in the batter, the softer your cookie will be and the more floury the taste (not the idea - another reason not to over-flour it). I hope this helps someone.

This sugar cookie dough is not the worst I've worked with despite many of the poor reviews. I made it up 2 days before I was going to use it and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge. The dough is very, very soft and hard to work with. I simply used a lot of flour on the cutting board, grabbed a hand full of dough, and kneaded some extra into each handful. I did not use a rolling pin, but flattened it with my hands. Use plenty of spare flour and your cookies will come out fine. Also, use a simple outline cutter, not one with a lot of detail. The dough WILL stick to each part. A seasoned baker will have no problem with this dough. Sugar cookies from scratch are NOT easy to make. Also, you may want to ice these or put on some sprinkles.

I loved these cookies! The texture and flavor were as good as the local bakery's! Though I did find it required a little extra TLC and work, I have found this to be true of ALL rolled dough cookie batters. But unlike many of the others, I had no trouble whatsoever working the dough. I think the long lost secret may be that you need to stir in at least the last half of the flour by hand. An electric mixer overworks the dough so that you need to add lots of extra flour. Once I did this I just added a little extra at a time till the dough was like sticky playdough before refrigeration. Since I live in a tremendously humid climate I find I need to do this with virtually all cookie recipes, rolled or otherwise. I ended up with only about 3/4 cup extra flour being required, which is pretty normal for me. Great Recipe! I will definitely use it again.

Had I read the reviews, I would've avoided this recipe. Since I was foolish enough not to read others' opinions, I now have my own. :c( This recipe turned into a total flop. The only good thing I can say is that the cookies that *did* get into the oven tasted great. But the dough was a nightmare to deal with. It was gooey, and stuck terribly to the counter even though I had HEAVILY floured it. THEN, after rolling the gooey dough into balls and rolling in sugar (trying to salvage it), I baked them on an UNgreased cookie sheet, per the directions. They STUCK to the sheets! Ugh! I was SO mad at this point! Plus, I was idiotic enough to QUADRUPLE the recipe. Sooo, I have a LOT of very gooey, nearly useless dough. My fault for ignoring the reviews. I'll not use this one again!

Not very kid friendly because of the need for more flour than the recipe calls for. A little common sense and creativity helped me out with this one. Baked with a little grape jelly in the middle is as good as the frosting on top!!! Thanks!!

These are great, you can even slightly burn them (oops!) and they STILL taste good! OK, so they really need the time in the fridge because they're a bit messy to work with, but oh, so worth the trouble. Thank You.

This was a yummy cookie! The Lemon extract really made a difference. I made two batches, one with butter and one with margarine. I would highly recommend using margarine. Although the dough was more sticky,( I had to add a bit more flour) It cooked up nicely. THe batch made with butter started off less sticky and more firm, but when I cooked it , it spread out too much on the pan. They both tasted great, the butter batter being more crisp and delicate. I would definitely make these again, but will use margarine!

These were good, but I had to put a LOT more flour into it before I was able to do anything remotely close to rolling it out. The dough is very soft and you need to heavily dust your rolling surface with flour or the dough will stick every time. But the cookies come out very nicely after those alterations.

There was no way to make cut out cookies from this. The dough was way too soft even after being refrigerated overnight. I finally rolled it into walnut sized balls and mashed it a little with a glass dipped in colored sugar. They were a VERY crisp cookie.

I followed the recipe exactly as written...and I mean measure for measure... and when the cookies went into the oven, they basically melted into giant sugar blobs! They surprisingly still tasted very good, I loved the flavor. But they were unrecognizable and were ruined for decorating. Very disappointing - I had 6 friends over for cookie baking and we couldn't do a single sugar cookie. Very disappointing.

I too failed to read the reviews and ended up with a very sticky dough. I had tripled the recipe to provide enough cookies for my 4 childrens classrooms. I had no choice but to work with it. I added lots more flour and worked with a small amount of dough at a time. I got rave reviews on them. I think I will make them again, but this time i will be prepared for the flour addition!

This is a great recipe, never fails to please my guests. I have substituted margarine for butter without a problem (they brown faster)Thanks to Gramma Betz!

After reading most of the negative reviews regarding this recipe, I decided to go ahead and try it anyway. Like many others, I also added more flour after finding the dough too sticky, and I DID NOT refrigerate it overnight, or for any amount of time, and the only other change I made was omitting the lemon extract. My 3 1/2 yr old daughter helped me cut the dough into snowmen, bells, Christmas trees, and hearts. After they baked, I let them cool for about 15 minutes, then poured icing that I mixed with food coloring over them (the kind that you heat in the microwave and it hardens). We wrapped them up in colored paper and ribbons the next day and brought them to my family for Christmas Eve. No one could believe these cookies were home-made! They were so thick, shaped beautifully and rich in taste. The snowmen were blue, the hearts pink, the trees green with colorful sprinkles, and the bells purple. I highly recommend this recipe, and also this frosting to color and pour over them. I forget the brand, but I think it says "heat and pour" on the container. Just make sure to use a rack so the frosting can drip through. I'm going to make them again for Valentine's day. Now, in retrospect, I really wish I had taken pictures to post on this website.

This was a pretty simple recipe, but as far as cutout cookies go they really get big. I had a really hard time trying to figure out the perfect thickness so that they would hold their form. For me that seemed to be at about 1/4 inch.

This recipie is not good for cut-outs. The cookies spread into a huge blob with no shape, defeating the point of cut-outs. The taste is fairly good, but I thought the lemon was a little overpowering for a sugar cookie. I would cut it in half unless you really like the taste of lemon in your cookies.

The cookies taste good. The dough is soft and difficult to roll out and apply a cookie cutter. Since I wanted to put icing on these cookies, I noticed that they did not keep any shape. So, I did not try.

I love these cookies! So easy to make, and my husband says they taste just like his grandma's. I've made a few adjustments ... I've found that chilling the dough for only 1-2 hrs. makes it really easy to work with, and I only bake them for 5-6 mins. Also, if I don't have lemon extract on hand, I just omit it ... they still taste great. Thanks, Tricia!

The dough tasted great. I tmade nice cookies. BUT, it is only getting 3 stars becasue of all the trouble I had rolling the dough and using the cookie cutters. It definately NEEDS MORE FLOUR than what is called for. I would almost double the amount of flour. Can't say for sure becasue I kept adding more and more flour until the cutters worked well.

I had high hopes for these cookies after making the batter and tasting it, but after refridgerating it after night I realized making the cookies was much more of a nuisance. The batter was far too sticky and after trying all manners of fixing it (flouring, moistening cookie cutters etc.) I ended up just dropping tablespoons of batter down and cutting them out with a glass /after/ they were baked. After all that trouble they weren't terribly amazing, possibly good if you're willing to fool around with troublesome dough, but otherwise use a different recipe.

this is a really good reciepy! i made these cookies just an hour ago, and wow do they taste good! though i added some extra flour like one person here suggested, and i don't like that but it was just 1/4 of a cup so its not that bad. its still really good! my family likes it too, and i also added strawberry preserves to half of them and i highly suggest adding like jelly, jam or something like that to them, taste really good! so yeah GOOD COOKIES :)

We were were really looking for a good sugar cookie recipe and we found this one. It appealed to us because it was so old. We mixed the ingredients and got the oven ready. Then we noticed that the dough had to chill. We were very hungry and didn't feel much like waiting so we dipped our fingers into the dough and WOW! The dough is great! Of course, we had to cook one batch just to see, and they were pretty good, but we like it much more as dough. We ended up turning the oven off and serving the dough to our friends. It was a hit! Thanks, Betz! Signed, Cookie Dough Lovers

I've been searching for a great sugar cookie recipe,and this is it!! I didn't want to make cut out cookies,so I avoided the whole "too sticky to work with" dilemma. I did add just a tad more vanilla and flour. Great tasting cookie. They are great plain, or with frosting and sprinkles for Christmas! Thanks for the recipe!!!!

I just made these cookies for a Halloween party a while ago, and they were a big hit! The dough was delicious (probably could have gotten more cookies made if I hadn't been eating so much of it...), but I did find I needed to add about an extra cup of flour for the dough to hold shapes.

Yummy....made these at hubby's request. Been craving a lemon flavored sugar cookie like his grandma used to make. Came very close!! A keeper for a delicious cookie!!

great sugar cookies. i think we ate more dough than cookies. try adding mini m&m's, its great.

These are delicious! Much more flavorful than most cut-outs. I admit, they're very hard to work with (so are most other cut-out batters). I refrigerated the dough for about an hour and then separated it into three sections for easier working, leaving the other section(s) in the fridge while I worked. I used a LOT of flour to work with this. I dropped the dough into a bowl of flour and kneaded it, repeating until it no longer felt sticky. Only then did I roll it out, again using a well-floured surface and flouring the top before cutting. I also floured the cutter after each 4-5 cuts I made, to be sure that it wouldn't stick to the dough. Once I did this, though, the dough was cooperative and even pleasant to work with.

This is a delicious cookie - crispy yet tender inside. I left out the lemon extract and increased the vanilla to 1 1/2 tsp. I made these for a bridal shower. After chilling the dough, I rolled out a small portion at a time and cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. They baked for about 8 minutes. While they were still warm, I cut out two holes in the middle of the cookie with a straw. When the cookies were completely cool, I threaded a pink ribbon through the holes and tied a bow. Decorated with coarse sugar, colored sugar or sprinkles. Very pretty and wonderful flavor.

This is by far the best sugar cookie recipe I have ever had. I followed the recipe to a tee and they turned out perfect. My kids and I cut them out and decorated them for Santa. I read these other posts about the cookies not holding shape and the dough hard to work with. Not true at all... I can see that stuff happening if you do not have a clue on making roll out cookies. I did find that if you roll the dough too thin or too thick the cookies will become a little distorted but not cookie blobs. Give my regards to Betz... best cookies Santa's ever had.

I absolutely love these cookies. I added a small change to them, as I love lemon sugar cookies. I simply juiced (by hand) two lemons, and added the juice, and about a tablespoon of the zest from them, and about a teaspoon and a half of baking soda. I love them fresh and refridgerated! :) Thanks so much for the great recipe.

Mmm, this is hands down the best cookie recipe I have made so far. Somebody out there is going to scold me for my impatience, but I didn't chill the cookies and instead made drop cookies out of the dough. I also omitted the lemon extract. They flattened out to a perfect soft mound. They looked beautiful and my whole family loved them. Looks like I made a mistake in halfing the recipe. :)

Around the holidays my mother used to make Christmas sugar cookies for my brother and I. They were soooo good, I looked forward to helping her make them every year. My mother passed away several years ago, and last year I wanted find her recipe for these cookies. No one in the family knew it or had it, so I searched this site for it, I made 2-3 other sugar cookie recipes which did not come close to my moms, then I tried this one. I would say this is the closest if not the same as my mothers. I almost cried. The dough was a little hard to work with, I just used alot of flour, it was a small price to pay for the end result. I didn't have any lemon extract, and they tasted just fine. I am glad I didn't. Last year for Christmas I made and sent some for my brother who was still in the military...it was wonderful and brought back wonderful memories. Thank you Betz!!!!!

I didn't care for this recipe at all, but I don't like the lemon flavor, so that was my disappointment. I didn't think the lemon flavor would be as strong as it was. Other than that they were fine.

My family LOVES these cookies. I didn't wait overnight to bake. I made my first batch right away. I used my cookie scoop and they came out round and plump. They are so moist and GREAT. I didn't have lemon juice so I used lime. These are great cookies. This is a recipe I will use forever.

I left out the lemon and used more vanilla and I also just dropped them on the cookie sheet once everything was mixed. Wow! These were so flavorful! I decorated mine with a powdered sugar and milk frosting but I wish I had left them plain! Next time, I'm going to try just sprinkles. If you are looking for an easy and tasty sugar cookie recipe, this is it! Update: I made these again without the frosting. I just put some sprinkles on before baking. They were so tasty! Next I will have to try them with buttercream frosting.

Every time I make this cookies, I get rave revues!

Dough too sweet. Cookies did not hold their shape. Dough difficult to handle. I used butter. Recipe definitely needs more flour, less sugar.

These cookies tasted very good, and kept their shape well. I had to add a lot of extra flour though (at least another cup), as the dough was very sticky. I may have added too much butter. I would suggest rolling it out a little fatter (more to eat!)

wow! the dough was incredible, tasting that is. Other than that these cookies were awful. The dough was extremely gooey and when you cut them out to cook they ended up looking like a potato chip rather than a cookie.

Followed the recipe, EXCEPT: added lemon zest instead of extract. In my opinion, this is not a cut-out friendly recipe as submitted, but I rolled it into balls, then in sugar, and they came out great. The dough really is delicious! I did not add extra flour this time, but the flavor warrants another try.

I lost my favourite sugar cookie recipe and needed a new one fast. This one was easy to prepare and they turned out every nice. I recieved many compliments. Thanks for saving the day!

absolutely lovely! but they taste best when they come out of the oven, after its chilled there is too big of a difference in taste! so be quick

This dough is unrollable!! wayy too soft!

The BEST sugar cookie!!

the cookies ended up being great, but when i frist took the dough out of the refrigerator in the morning, it was a gooey mess. i had to add about 2/3 cup flour to it to make it usable, plus there was a lot on the cutting board. if you're up for the hassle, these cookies taste great.

this is the WORST recipe I;ve ever made! It's very sticky and doesn't roll out. I'm in my 40's and have made a lot of cookies. Maybe increase the flour or use only 1 egg. Either way this recipe needs help!

Excellent. My husband's last name is Betz and when I made the cookies for the first time, he said they tasted exactly like the ones his grandmother used to make when he was a kid. No recipe had been past down to him. So he was thrilled that I found it. Easy to make. No problem.

The cookie recipe itself was tasty, but not easy to handle even after chilling overnight. My kids were excited to make shaped cookies, but couldn't because it stuck to rolling pin and was messy. In the end, we had to roll into balls and it became a big glob cookie.

These are GREAT sugar cookies! I made them with my 3 year old son and he had a great time! We put in almond extract instead of lemon and then I just seperated the finished dough into quarters. I fridged one quarter over night and then froze the remaining three (in seperate bags) for future cookie making afternoons. This made it into the perfect amount of cookie cutting and baking time to keep a 3 year old entertained with the process. Too much fun and a fabulous cookie! They would make great ones for frosting too.

Definately NOT a cut out cookie. Dough was way too sticky and wouldn't roll out. I even added an extra cup of flour and it still stuck!

Wow. What a flop. We followed the directions 100%. After chilling the dough, we went to roll out the dough... it was a gooey mess that could not be rolled. We couldn't even form them into little balls.... We just ended up trying to make somewhat organized piles of the dough and cooked it. Well, I should go clean off my rolling pin....

Tasted wonderful - loved the lemon extract addition to normal sugar cookies!! Mine were spreading out/getting crispier than I wanted so I changed it up. I started making 1 inch balls, poking the top to make a divot, filled it with colored sprinkles and baked them. They came out fatter and chewier, but still looking very festive. They were a hit!!! I'll definitely make them again.

This is a great recipe my kids love it and its so easy I love it

This recipe was not a great for cut out cookies, the dough was too soft. As a drop cookie is was really great.

My mom and I (neither of us are great cooks) tried this over Thanksgiving weekend. The dough was absolutely the tastiest cookie dough anybody in my family has ever experienced, but our entire batch was a flop! We don't know why -- high altitude, old flour, or maybe margarine instead of butter, or the weather -- but all of our cookies immediately flattened out into shapeless, paper-thin messes. We tried adding more flour to no avail. However, now that I'm back at sea level, I'm going to try it again with reveiwers' tips... that dough was just too tasty to give up on! The lemon was a nice touch, too.

How I wish I'd taken the time to check the reviews before I made this recipe. Today is "green" day at my daughter's kindergarten, so last night I made the dough, refrigerated it overnight, and got up early this morning to bake it into leaf shapes. When I peeked into the oven and saw the mess on my cookie sheets I wanted to cry. Too late to do them over; we'll have to stop at the grocery store and find something green there to take. Why oh why did I have to try something new rather than my own grandmother's cookie recipe which is perfectly fine? And why did I wait until the last minute? Ugh. Enough whining, but I'll be sure to always read reviews from now on!!!!

Fantastic! I was glad I made the dough before reading the reviews, as I may have been turned off. The dough is fine to work with...just treat it like gingerbread dough. Use lots of flour (on the surface, on your hands, on the rolling pin) and use small portions of the dough at a time, keeping the rest in the refrigerator or freezer so it stays firm. I'm not a seasoned baker by any means, but I've made a lot of gingerbreads, so these were fairly easy. Enjoy!!

Wonderful recipe! It was so easy and they tasted great! thanks so much!

When I tried the recipe, I adjusted for 36 and used two eggs and 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and another 1/2 cup flour and 1/4tsp of baking powder. They came out perfect. They weren't too hard, I didn't need to refrigerate them overnight. I think this adjustment is well put. I tried the recipe as is and my cookies just didn't come out the same, they were a little too doughy. But this is a great recipe!

This is a horrible recipe! The cookies tasted alrite (nothing great) but that's after the house nearly burnt down! These cookies DO NOT take 10 minutes, and hardly take 5! I burnt half of them! I had put the first batch in, and was starting to cut the others, when after abour 6 minutes, it started to smell and then my whole kitchen was filled with smoke! Im lucky the fire alarm didn't go off! I'll never make this recipe again, its not worth it. I even doubled the recipe and hardly got 4 dozen (let alone 6!)

Flavor was ok, but when i was finally able to get a cut out, they did NOT resemble anything but a blob after baking. I won' t be using this recipe again.

I tried this recipe. I let it sit in the fridge for about 24 hours. Dough was sticky and I had to use alot of flour. I also do not like lemon so I left that out and doubled the vanilla. I baked them for 6 minutes and they came out nice and soft. Husband really loved them. Best sugar cookie I have had in a while. I did cutouts with them and the only problem I had was with the stickiness. I ended up with about 6 dozen.

I read all the reviews that said it was difficult to use this for cut outs...we had no problem at all! We chilled the dough overnight and used flour on the cutting board. They were perfect! They taste excellent too.

I love the taste of these cookies. I didn't have the patience to refrigerate them, so I spooned them up, dropped and rolled them into sugar. The end result was delicious!!!

I loved this recipe because it made my husband real happy! He couldn't wait so I froze the dough for 10 minutes! Presto!!! And they were perfect!

I would have used a lot more lemon zest and juice, but I like tartness!