Sugar cookie
{{Short description|Cookie flavored primarily with sugar}}
{{For|the 1973 film|Sugar Cookies (film)}}
{{Infobox food
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| image = Grannie Gilbert's Sugar Cookies.jpg
| image_size = 250px
| caption = Plain sugar cookies
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| country = United States
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| type = Cookie
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| main_ingredient = Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, or baking soda
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A sugar cookie, or sugar biscuit, is a cookie with the main ingredients being sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and either baking powder or baking soda.[http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe/index.html Sugar Cookie Recipe from the Food Network] Retrieved February 12, 2009. Sugar cookies may be formed by hand, dropped, or rolled and cut into shapes. They may be decorated with additional sugar, icing, sprinkles, or a combination of these. Decorative shapes and figures can be cut into the rolled-out dough using a cookie cutter.
Name
The name Nazareth cookie came from the people of Nazareth, Pennsylvania who came from Germany. The cookie later took on other names in other countries. In England they were called sugar biscuits as well as jumbles.{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Anastasia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZD96EAAAQBAJ |title=Biscuits and Cookies: A Global History |date=July 15, 2019 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=9781789141153 |access-date=9 May 2023}}
History
Jumbles are the earliest form of sugar cookies. These cookies were very dry and were not very enjoyable; however people used them as Christmas ornaments. People would cut out these sugar cookies into different shapes and hang them on their Christmas tree.{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Anastasia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZD96EAAAQBAJ |title=Biscuits and Cookies: A Global History |date=July 15, 2019 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=9781789141153 |access-date=9 May 2023}}
Published recipes for the sugar cookie began to appear in the 1800s. Some of these early variations included sour cream or large amounts of milk, in addition or in place of the now-standard ingredients.{{cite web |last1=Holt |first1=Kristin |title=Sugar Cookies in Victorian America |date=9 July 2019 |url=http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/13991 |access-date=8 December 2021}} In 1885, The Boston Globe published a recipe for sugar cookies that omitted liquid dairy ingredients, included baking powder, and had a ratio of one cup of sugar to one half cup of butter.{{cite web |last1=Holt |first1=Kristin |title=Sugar Cookies in Victorian America |date=9 July 2019 |url=http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/13991 |access-date=8 December 2021}}
In the late 1950s, Pillsbury began selling pre-mixed refrigerated sugar cookie dough in US grocery stores, as a type of icebox cookie.{{Cite book|last=Mercuri|first=Becky|title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-973496-2|editor-last=Smith|editor-first=Andrew F.|edition=2nd|location=New York, NY|pages=521|chapter=Cookies|oclc=781555950}} {{Clear}}
File:SugarCookie.JPG|Dropped sugar cookie
File:20061001 sugar cookies.jpg|Undecorated sugar cookies, rolled out and cut into the shape of a flower
File:Sugarcookie.jpg|Dropped sugar cookie with a powdered sugar glaze and sprinkles
File:Christmas Cookies2.jpg|The six-pointed stars are filled with hard candy. The others are decorated with frosting.
File:Buttercream Filled Sugar Cookies (25618676884).jpg|Sandwich cookies made with sugar cookies and buttercream frosting
File:Decorated-sugar-cookies-square copy
Shapes
Sugar cookies take various shapes, depending on the type of sugar cookie. When a sugar cookie is dropped, they typically are in the shape of a circle. When they are rolled, cookie cutters are often used to form the cookies into different shapes, such as hearts or animals.{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Anastasia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZD96EAAAQBAJ |title=Biscuits and Cookies: A Global History |date=July 15, 2019 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=9781789141153 |access-date=9 May 2023}}