Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth.
Add the sugar and continue beating until thoroughly combined. Add the egg and vanilla extract and repeat.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the flour one cup at a time, mixing between each new addition.
The dough should be firm, easily peels away from the bowl and no longer sticky.
Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Once the dough is chilled, knead it on a lightly floured surface until malleable.
Roll the dough out to 1/4″ thick. Cut out with desired shapes.
Bake the dough at 350F for 6-10 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies.
The cookies are done when they’re no longer shiny on top.
Sugar cookie dough is too dry: A dry dough is often a sign of too much flour. To fix this, try kneading in a little vegetable oil. Dough that is too dry will lead to dry, crumbly cookies.
Sugar cookie dough is too sticky: If your sugar cookie dough is too sticky, it’s most likely one of two problems: either the cookie dough hasn’t been chilled long enough or it has too little flour. Make sure the dough has chilled for at least 1 hour, but if the dough is still too sticky, tried kneading in a little more flour.
Sugar cookies lost their shape while baking: If your cookies lost their shape during the baking process, no worries! If you act quickly, it’s an easy fix. Simply re-cut the cookies with the same cookie cutter immediately after removing the tray from the oven.
Baked sugar cookie surface is uneven: Sometimes sugar cookies will develop little bumps and air bubbles as they bake. If this happens, run a fondant smoother gently over the tops of the cookies immediately after they’ve been removed from the oven. If you don’t have a fondant smoother, gently patting the top with a paper towel works, too.
Baked sugar cookies are gummy: Gummy cookies are often a sign that the cookies were under-baked or had too much liquid/moisture in them. If the cookie dough wasn’t sticky, it’s probably the former. To avoid gummy cookies, make sure you bake them until the surface is no longer shiny.
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