Name: Basic Butter Cookie Dough
Ingredients: 3 cups (spooned and leveled) all-purpose flour; 1 cup confectioners' sugar; 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut in pieces; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 4 large egg yolks; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; Egg wash, (optional): 1 large egg white, beaten with 2 teaspoons water; Decorating sugar and sprinkles, (optional)

One basic dough can make very different but equally delectable cookies -- Spritz Butter Cookies, Cut-Out Butter Cookies, and Icebox Butter Cookies.

Basic Butter Cookie Dough

all-purpose flour

confectioners' sugar

(2 sticks) cold unsalted butter,

salt

vanilla extract

Decorating sugar and sprinkles, (optional)

Place flour, sugar, butter, and salt in the bowl of a food processor; process until mixture is the texture of coarse meal.

In a small bowl, lightly beat egg yolks and vanilla; with motor running, add to food processor. Process just until a dough forms.

I make this recipe for cut outs every year. It’s great!!! Super easy to prepare and bakes perfectly. I use it for snowflake cookies and top with white sparkling sugar and they are delicious and pretty.

I have made this recipe now every Xmas for about 4 years - LOVE IT!!!

I like it &amp; I make it with my wolfgank Puck electric cookie maker that I got from Premiere appliance on line, in case you are still using the old hand press one.  They are easy.

This recipe is the easiest thing I have EVER made. It tastes so good too. Forget the icing. This thing is great by itself.

So, so, so good.  I made the ice box version because it's so quick.  Used colored sugar to make them pretty.  I really need to find an easy to use cookie press because I'd love to make the spritz version.  I love to bake cookies and these are just rocking butter cookies.  You cannot go wrong with this cookie batter recipe.

Wonderful recipe and a snap to make...I made these on three separate occasions and each time they came out perfect in 9 minutes...so delicious!

Terrible recipe, Joy of cooking has a much easier to use recipe that works every time. Every sorry I tried this one, ended up having to make cookie balls instead of using my press. :( So sad.

Great cookies! Could eat a dozen plain, but with frosting they are good too! I made mine very thick and did the normal time, they came out perfect! Did not even use a food pro. did it all by hand!! I will forever be a fan of these scrumptious cookies :D

Very easy.  I used my Kitchen Aide.  Worked great!
Don't forget the parchment paper.  Slide off easily!
They don't spread  of "pucker" like other sugar cookies.  
Cook smaller sized for about 8 minutes!!!!

I have a small food processor and make half a batch of dough at a time and then put it all together on the counter.

What do I do if I don't have a big enough food processor

These are yummy, but I had the same problem with this recipe that I do with most of Martha's cookie recipes: When I'm finished mixing the dough, it's all crumbly and quite hard to roll out until it's warmed up a bit. Does anyone have suggestions?

I like this recipe because  you can do many things with one recipe.  My daughter loves this recipe too!

The directions are complete because this is a receipe for the cookie dough.  The dough is used in many cookie receipes on this site that will also have the baking time and temp.  Check out Spritz cookies, it uses this dough and has further explaination.

The directions were not complete; oven temperature, how long to bake etc.

Basic Butter Cookie Dough

Author : Martha Stewart

Ingredients

Instructions

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