One Wilton cookie recipe with eight options shines in McCormick icing

Sugar cookies sparkle in glossy icing from a McCormick recipe

Way back in 2007, Wilton issued a holiday press release with the following recipe. Created to streamline cookie-making for busy bakers, it uses one sweet dough for sugar cookies to cut-out, slice and refrigerate, or squeeze into shapes through a cookie press. 

After testing the recipe to use in a newspaper article that year, it became a personal keeper.  Over the years, I've  learned it can go beyond even what was suggested then, and some of those ideas follow.

We're working on similar variations of our reduced calorie Slender-doodles recipe, inspired by a Better Homes and Garden  recipe for sour cream sugar cookies. For the Slender-doodles, we used nonfat sour cream, a little less butter and rolled them in brown sugar and cinnamon before baking. Stay tuned for the recipe update!

Wilton's Three-in-One cookie dough

2 sticks of softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

Assorted holiday sprinkles, sugars, chopped nuts, crushed peppermint

1. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in flour, mixing until blended. Handle the dough in one of three ways below to make 3 to 4 dozen cookies.

Slice-and-Bake Refrigerator Cookies
 

1. Divide dough in half. Roll each into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Roll log in colored sugars, crushed peppermint, sprinkles or chopped nuts. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

2. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove dough from plastic wrap and slice off 1/4-inch cookies.

3. Bake 10-12 minutes on ungreased baking sheet. Remove from sheet and cool completely on wire racks.

Spritz Cookies
 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill cookie press with dough and use desired disk to press cookies onto ungreased baking sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar.

2. Bake and cool as above.

Cutout Cookies
 

1. Shape dough into two disks. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes.

2. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out dough about 1/8-inch thick on lightly floured surface. Dip cutter into flour before cutting dough.

3. Bake and cool as directed above.

More recipe options

Get creative with flavors, colors shapes and add-ons. 

Chocolate: Reduce flour to 2-1/2 cups and add a half cup of high-quality cocoa powder to the dough mix. You can also dip cooled cookies into melted chocolate or drizzle them artfully with it. Just put the chocolate in a zip-top bag and snip off a corner to pipe out designs

Blossoms: Bake plain or chocolate cookies in balls and press a chocolate kiss or peanut butter cup into each cookie fresh from the oven.

Lemon: Top some of the cookies with a lemon glaze made from 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon of  water and 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice. Add a few drops of yellow food color, if desired. For all lemon cookies, add a teaspoon of lemon zest when blending in the eggs and vanilla.

Cheater-doodles: Shape dough into 1" balls and roll each ball in cinnamon-sugar (3 tablespoons of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon). Flatten cookies slightly before baking.

Bright: Want cookies in colors? Add drops of food color after blending in the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.  Adding color after the flour will result in tough cookies with overworking the dough. Make the dough a little darker than you want, because it will lighten with the addition of flour.

McCormick's easy sweet and shiny icing recipe

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon McCormick vanilla extract

2 teaspoons light corn syrup

McCormick Assorted Food Colors

1. Mix confectioners’ sugar, milk and extract in a bowl until smooth. Add more milk as needed to thin icing, more sugar to thicken.

2. Stir in corn syrup until smooth and glossy. Makes about a cup of icing.

3. Divide icing between small, shallow bowls for each color. Stir in food color by drops to get desired colors.

4. Spoon icing onto cooled cookies or hold a cookie by its edges and dip top into icing. Sprinkle with decorative sugar if desired.

5. Place cookies on wire racks to dry before storing in airtight containers.

For details: Spoon contrasting glaze into small resealable plastic bag. Snip off a tiny bit of the corner and squeeze out designs. For a more muted design, add contrast before glazed cookie dries. The colors will blend slightly for a softer result.

Note: Use the icing soon after preparing, and don’t refrigerate; it will begin to harden.