Strong Espresso Sugar Cookies – No Chill Cut Out Sugar Cookie Recipe
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I have a recipe for all the coffee admirers out there, espresso sugar cookies! These espresso sugar cookies are so good with a vanilla base and an undeniable kick of espresso.
Usually when I am making a flavored cookie, I want to be able to taste the flavor, not just smell it or see it, you know what I mean? Well, you don’t have to worry with these espresso sugar cookies.
They smell AHH-mazing, have pretty swirls and specks of espresso, and taste exactly how you want them to taste.
I have another espresso sugar cookie recipe that I call a mocha sugar cookie but these ones have a vanilla base. My go-to coffee is a vanilla cold brew. These cookies, especially topped with vanilla buttercream, remind me of my favorite drink.
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Why You’ll Love These Espresso Sugar Cookies
- Smell & more-importantly taste just like coffee
- Keep their shape when baking
- Freeze well (I’d even recommend doing a quick freeze after cooling and before decorating to keep the cookies as fresh as possible!)
- Easy to decorate
- No chill recipe!
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The Best Vanilla Espresso Sugar Cookies for Cookie Decorating
Ingredients Needed for Espresso Sugar Cookies:
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Salted butter
- Granulated cane sugar
- An egg
- Vanilla extract
- Espresso powder
Directions for Making Espresso Sugar Cookies:
Let’s get started! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then, in a medium sized mixing bowl, combine three cups of all purpose flour with two teaspoons of baking powder.
When measuring the flour, make sure to use the scoop and level method. That is, use a spoon to scoop flour into a measuring cup. Then, use a knife to scrape the excess flour off the top so there is a perfectly even measurement.
You may know by now, but I’m “just” a mom and didn’t go to pastry school. I enjoy decorating sugar cookies but I don’t take the time to weigh my ingredients. If you don’t have a kitchen scale we can for sure be friends.
If you do have a kitchen scale, I admire your accurateness and your cookies should come out flawless. When I look it up online, 3 cups of all-purpose flour should be 384 grams.
Set the mixing bowl aside. In a stand mixer, add in one cup of cold salted butter. I like to cube my butter first since the butter is cold.
Add in one cup of granulated sugar. With the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together.
Once creamed, add in one egg and one tablespoon of vanilla extract. Mix until just combined.
Add in the flour and baking powder mixture slowly.
Once it is almost completely mixed, add in two teaspoons of espresso powder. This amount gives a nice strong kick of espresso without making it bitter.
Mix in the espresso powder until the dough forms a ball.
Now that the dough is prepared, go ahead and flour your counter and roll out the dough to 3/8″ of an inch. If you want a speckled espresso cookie look, roll out all of your dough at once and cut out as many cookies as you can. The more you roll it, the more you will get a swirl look. Both will taste amazing of course.
I prefer 3/8″ of an inch for sugar cookies because it means more cookie in each cookie. Of course, if you prefer 1/4″ sugar cookies you can do that, too. Just lower the baking time by a couple minutes.
I use my favorite rolling pin, the Joseph Joseph adjustable rolling pin that allows me to change the height of the dough. Not only that, it makes sure that my dough is the same height throughout the dough for even baking. I may not measure my flour, but I do like to work on a flat surface when decorating cookies.
Arrange the cookies onto a lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes. The sugar cookies are done when the top of the cookie doesn’t look wet.
Allow the cookies to cool completely prior to decorating them with your choice of frosting. Of course, you can always eat these sans frosting!
I absolutely love these with vanilla buttercream but if you want even more coffee flavor, top them with espresso buttercream!
I recently bought a projector for cookie decorating and decided to use these cookies to test it out. I figure the work of learning new technology would be paid off with an espresso cookie and I wasn’t wrong!
Here’s the design I came up with using PNG files from two Etsy shops: Studio Hello Yellow and A to Z Digital Designs.
Strong Espresso Sugar Cookies for Cookie Decorating
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- Rubber Spatula
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Medium Sized Mixing Bowl
- Rolling Pin
- Cookie Cutters
- Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour plus more for rolling
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup cold, cubed salted butter 2 sticks
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 2 tsp. espresso powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Remember to measure the flour using the scoop & level method which is explained above.
- In a stand mixer, combine the cold, cubed butter with the granulated sugar. Mix with the paddle attachment until creamed together.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract to the mixing bowl and mix until combined.
- Slowly add in the flour mixture until the dough is almost together. It should still have some sticking to the side of the bowl.
- Add in the espresso powder, then mix on low until the dough forms a ball.
- Roll the cookies out to 3/8" onto a floured surface. Cut the cookies using a cookie cutter and bake on a prepared cookie sheet for 7-10 minutes or until the top of the cookie doesn't look wet.
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