In our house, everyone’s most-requested, all-time favorite treat is sugar cookies. These sugar cookies. If you’ve never made them, they are amazing–buttery, melt-in-your-mouth amazingness. The problem is that the chilling and rolling and cutting and re-rolling and re-cutting is messy time-consuming and requires fridge space and planning ahead and that doesn’t even take into account the subsequent decorating that has to take place. And then, people never want them at convenient times; they want them on Christmas Eve or birthdays or for their class the next day (when they remember to tell you at 10:30 pm) or at 2:00 in the morning (I’m pretty sure that was me when I was growing another human within me)–always at times when I have about 10 million things going on.
Sugar cookie bars solve so many of those problems–there is no chilling, no rolling, no cutting, no wasted precious dough, all the decorating is done in about 3 minutes, the mess is minimal. Plus, there is something so adorably festive and sentimental about them, even if it’s just frosting and sprinkles. Seriously, my friend pulled out a pan of sugar cookie bars at her Super Bowl party and people bypassed all sorts of fancy-schmancy desserts and went straight for the sugar cookie bars.
I’ve been so spoiled by our sugar cookie recipe that I wasn’t sure how I felt about using another recipe (actually, I was pretty sure how I felt about it and I didn’t feel good.) So I decided to try making our sugar cookie recipe into bars, crossing my fingers that I didn’t waste a whole pound of butter on a giant pan of fail. Luckily, these came out at LEAST as good as rolled cookies, and my kids were just as wildly excited (seriously–my two big kids, one of their friends, and the 1-year-old all saw them at the same time and shrieked with excitement). So it was a major win in every possible way.
How To Make Them
For the cookies, you’re going to need softened butter, no substitutions!), sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, and 6 cups of flour. HEAR ME NOW AND BELIEVE ME LATER ($10 million if you catch that reference…just kidding…I don’t have $10 million dollars. But you’ll win my never-ending respect)–when you measure the flour, lightly spoon it into the measuring cups and level it with a knife. When you email us or leave us a comment that your dough was crumbly and didn’t come together, I can guarantee you that this is the problem because I’ve made the same mistake and I’ve seen exactly what happens when you scoop it out of the flour bag. Don’t do it. You will be sad. I will be sad. There’s enough sadness in the world without throwing sugar cookie tragedies into the equation.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a half sheet-sized baking sheet (13 x 18 x 1″–I have 4 of these and I would die before I let anyone take them. Well, maybe not die, but I’d probably put up a good fight and then I’d be pretty bummed about the whole thing.) with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
In a bowl of a heavy-duty mixer or in a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and extracts and beat until combined.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add to the creamed butter mixture and mix to combine.
Place the dough on the prepared baking sheet
and press the dough evenly into the baking sheet.
If desired, you can smooth it out with a rolling pin or a smooth drinking glass.
Bake for 20-30 minutes (mine was done right at 25 minutes, but every oven is different) or until the top is lightly golden brown.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
While the cookie bars are cooling, prepare the frosting. Place the butter, powdered sugar, and extracts in a large mixing bowl
and whip together until combined. Very slowly, add a little bit of milk at a time until desired consistency is reached. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and beat until very light and fluffy.
When the pan of cookies is cool, spread with frosting
and sprinkle with colored sprinkles.
Cut into squares.
The number of bars this makes will depend on how big you cut the squares, but these are VERY rich and you could probably get away with cutting these into 40+ squares.
Related Recipes
Click here for more Valentine’s Day Ideas.
Oatmeal M&M Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Print
Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars {With Fluffy Buttercream Frosting}
Description
A fantastically easy bar recipe that is the best of two glorious worlds: sugar and bar cookies. Your new family favorite!
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 cups real butter (no substitutions!), softened to room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon almond extract
- 6 cups flour, spooned lightly into the measuring cup and leveled with a knife.
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon table salt
Frosting
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2–3 tablespoons milk (or more, if needed milk; whole or evaporated if you have it handy)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a half sheet-sized baking sheet (13x18x1″) with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a bowl of a heavy-duty mixer or in a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and extracts and beat until combined.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the creamed butter mixture and mix to combine.
- Press the dough evenly into the prepared baking sheet. If desired, you can smooth it out with a rolling pin or a smooth drinking glass. Bake for 20-30 minutes (mine was done right at 25 minutes, but every oven is different) or until the top is lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
- While the cookie bars are cooling, prepare the frosting. In a large mixing bowl, whip together the powdered sugar and softened butter until combined. Very slowly, add a little bit of milk at a time until desired consistency is reached. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring.
- When the pan of cookies is cool, spread with frosting and sprinkle with colored sprinkles. Cut into squares. The number of bars this makes will depend on how big you cut the squares, but these are VERY rich and you could probably get away with cutting these into 40+ squares.
Notes
- Important tip: When scooping flour into your measuring cup, if you scoop it straight from the bag, the dough will be too dry!
Questions & Reviews
I’m not really a fan of sugar cookies, but my husband has been nagging me for some. It seemed like so much work for a cookie I don’t even like! Then I saw these and thought, hey it’ll stop the nagging. OH MY HECK! These are AMAZING. You have totally converted me to sugar cookies. (My husband thanks you too)
I’m not much of a baker but these look great, I just bought everything I needed. (Although I’m going to top them with Valentines M&Ms!)
Dude, where were these at Christmas? I can see making up a few different colors of icing to pipe on them, and just giving out squares (tiny tiles??) for guests to decorate at a party. Maybe a friendly cookie-art competition? That could either be fun, or disastrous…but hopefully at least entertaining.
I love sugar cookie bars-excited to try your recipe for my little’s class party!
Hanz and Franz make me giggle ’cause I can hear them in my head when I read that quote 🙂
Your sugar cookie dough is so amazing, I use it every time I need roll out cookies…. I made 8 dozen last year for Valentines day school parties, and this year had decided to do brownies or something else less time consuming ~ now I can have the best of both worlds, thanks for saving me! Thanks for sharing so much, I use your cookbooks and website probably at least 5 days a week, my friends are always impressed that I cook homemade meals so often, and I always give you and Sara credit 🙂
“…Maybe next time you make these you could measure the flour by weight so we can get just the right amount….”
Uh, any good cookbook will easily provide that translation. 1 cup all purpose flour = 5 ounces by weight. So the 6 cups in this recipe = 30 ounces by weight. And, yes, Kate’s method of spooning the flour lightly into the measuring cup gives precisely this weight.
A cup of flour can vary from 4.4 ounces to 5.5 ounces, depending on various factors, so it wasn’t an unfair question to ask Kate to give us her measurement of flour by weight.
And I should mention I verrrrry cautiously measured with the spoon-knife method and still got cookies that were a bit on the dry side. Next time I will indeed weigh the flour just to be safe! I’d personally love a weighted measure for these!
Thank you so much for this! I cannot even express how much I loathe roll out cookies. LOATHE. While everyone else is posting pictures on FB in December with their child-decorated sugar cookies, I am either bribing mine with another drop cookie or breaking down and just straight up buying some from the grocery store. I love to bake but I can’t handle the roll out cookies! So, yeah, my lazy butt and my child thank you for these. 😉
Just want to double check on the almond extract amount in the dough. It’s supposed to be a tablespoon, not a teaspoon? Usually I use less almond extract than vanilla in other recipes.
Yep, it’s right, promise! 🙂
I just made these for my son’s blue and gold banquet. You were spot on for the extracts. (No surprise to you) 🙂 Thanks for a delicious alternative to the laborious task of sugar cookie-making. In the words of one of my (4) sons, “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted!”
Oh Kate, you crack me up! Thank you for always being so real and making me laugh. Oh, AND thank you for this recipe! 🙂
You’re welcome, hahaha. You can always count on me to keep it real. 🙂
What is the texture of these? Soft, chewy?
Soft, kind of like soft shortbread. 🙂
I should have read these comments to know what to expect! They looked so good so I made them tonight. They turned out good and the taste is yummy but you’re right about them being shortbread soft. I was hoping for a chewy bar but they’re a little more powdery than I prefer. Still good though that my husband asked for more! Thanks.
Definitely want to try these! Have a baby reveal party coming up and these would be great with pink or blue sprinkles! Would it also be a good idea to SIFT the flour before measuring? or would that be overkill vs. just spooning lightly into the measuring cup? I’m certainly guilty of measuring straight from the canister!!
Thanks for another easy recipe for a great cookie! I don’t like rolled cookies—just never have the time for all that goes with making them.
Nah, I wouldn’t bother sifting it–just spooning should be just right. 🙂
Oh Gosh – you just saved my bacon! My husband wanted me to make sugar cookie pops for the 20+ cavemen he works with at a door shop (affectionately, but still cavemen, bless their hearts 🙂 for V-Day, and I hate going to all that work for a bunch of guys who can’t tell the difference between Pillsbury refrigerator dough and homemade cookie pops that took hours to make, roll, bake, cool, and frost!
You are seriously going to make me go broke on cute kitchen have-ta-haves! 🙂 I love all of the pretty blues and pinks! and PS, these bars sound amazing!
Robin B., when my cookie sheets get too gunky, I just scrub them with a steel wool pad. It takes a little elbow grease, but it gets them back to almost as good as new. I’ve also started using parchment paper or silpat mats on them when I use them. I really love it when you can just throw away the parchment paper and put them away after a quick wipe with a towel.
What a fantastic idea! I love your sugar cookie recipe but I’m with you on the whole ginormous process thing so I never make them. Now I will just make them like this and we will all be happy :).
Yum! I do have a serious case of the covets for your Le Creuset bowl.
Ha!! The good news is that, at least in the world of Le Creuset, the bowl is much more reasonable; you probably won’t even need to sell a person to get one. 🙂
Yay! I get to keep my kids!! >.<
HA! Yes!
Random question…have you found a way to keep your cookie sheets clean? I have had mine for 15 years and maybe it’s just time for new ones. I have tried all kinds of Pinterest ideas to no avail. My husband thinks it’s time for oven cleaner on them but it grosses me out to think of cooking on them after that….
And, as always, thanks for the fabulous recipes!!
Not really, hahaha. And I’m with you, I’m not sure that psychologically I’d be okay with cooking on them after using oven cleaner. Some of them are a little more well-loved than others; but I guess the good news is that they’re cheap-ish, so it’s not devastating when it’s time to replace them. I just try to keep up with the gunk as I go (instead of never cleaning my cookie sheets, which is how I was raised. Thanks, parents.)
Thanks! I see a Mother’s Day gift idea…which is always better than them trying to get me something on their own! 🙂
Try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Worked really well taking off the baked on gunk from my Le Cruset enamel. Test it on the underside, just in case it does damage. I think they’re pretty safe for most surfaces, though.
You can’t lose with that much butter! I’ll have to make these when I need to feed a lot of people!
Can the recipe be halved and perhaps baked in a jelly roll pan?
Yep, I’m sure it could. I’m not totally sure on the timing, but my guess is that it would be surprisingly similar.
For what it’s worth, I halved the recipe and made in a 9 x 13 standard brownie-type pan. I did not adjust the time or temp and they turned out perfect!
“I’m Hanz…and I’m Franz…And we’re here to PUMP you up!” That could be your slogan for these cookies but instead of pump insert plump because if I have all of the ingredients for them in my pantry I am about to eat a whole pan.
Hahahaha, YES. 🙂
These are happening when I get home from work tonight.
I have seen the idea for sugar cookie bars, but never could bring myself to make them because I love the recipe for your gals sugar cookies so much, I felt I would be betraying a friend. Now that I know this recipe turns out wonderful bars of heaven I am totally making these today! Thanks for making my day 🙂
Okay – forgive me, but I don’t like almond extract. Even more than my dislike for almond extract is my dislike for dumb questions after a VERY WELL PUT TOGETHER blog post. I see these blogs on Pinterest with 6,000 comments of, “can I substitute this for this..” and I feel so bad for the person who has to respond with, “Yes, you can leave out mushrooms…blah, blah, blah..” Yet, here I shamefully go. If I don’t like almond extract, are these worth making, or is that where most of the flavor lies?
You can totally leave it out, haha. Just increase the vanilla a little. OR you can use your favorite extract if you want, like lemon, orange, peppermint, etc. 🙂
I’m with Melissa, not wanting to make you repeat yourself- but I’m also very inquisitive, detail-oriented, and not fully confident in my baking/cooking know-how yet.
So- to ask it slightly differently: I don’t mind the flavor of almond extract at all, and trust that your specific recipe makes them super delicious (I seriously want to make them this minute)! But all I have is a ton of homemade vanilla extract, so I just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be missing some other flavor dimension that was well-worth it to buy some Almond. Will they not be the same without it? Will I be missing out? Should I just go buy some almond extract already?
Question 2- I have some cage-free eggs, that are definitely not the standard store-bought ‘large eggs.’ Would 3 of these smaller eggs work, is there a good way to sub the egg measurement here? Or should I just buy some large eggs too…I kinda need to get more eggs soon anyway.
Thanks so much for your time and help! I *can’t wait* to make these!!
I love the almond, and I think it makes these special, BUT if you don’t have it and you’re dying to make them, go ahead with just the vanilla. 🙂 But if you CAN, I’d go for the almond.
As far as the egg thing goes, I would maybe look up the standard measurement for a large egg and then try and shoot for the weight with your eggs. Or…go buy a thing of large eggs, hahaha. 🙂
Hi again!
So I didn’t get to them *that night,* but they’re in the oven now and the frosting is made. Yay! I have sprinkles ready but no food coloring, and so it occurred to me that I do have raspberry jam.
Now I’m wondering if that would give it a little bit o’ pink and added flavor….or maybe a jam would completely ruin the texture of a frosting, or raspberry would taste weird with the extracts?
If you get a minute- I’d love to hear your thoughts! 🙂 Thankya!
in my humble opinion 🙂 it is totally worth buying the almond extract!! that is what makes OBB sugar cookies sooo amazing!
I don’t use almond flavoring because my daughter is allergic to tree nuts and I’m paranoid even though I know *artificial* flavoring would probably be fine. I subbed lemon juice for the almond extract in both the cookie bars and the frosting, and I also added a pinch of lemon zest to the bars. I think they turned out great…bright but not overpoweringly lemony. I’ll do them this way again, though I know almond would yield a richer-tasting product. Thanks for a great recipe!
I love obscure references! Hans and Frans? We’re going to pump (clap) you up!
10 million dollars would be great, but hey, it’s nice to know that other people retain useless information like I do! 🙂
YES. I can hear it in my head every time I read it, haha.
Yay! A sugar cookie my lazy-self can embrace! These will be perfect for our church fish fry Fridays during Lent!
I’ve never had a sugar cookie bar, but I’m totally drooling over all these pictures. Plus, pink frosting is awesome!! These are definitely going on my baking “to do” list.
“There’s enough sadness in the world without throwing sugar cookie tragedies into the equation.”…please run for President and make this your campaign slogan!
This recipe is definitely on the menu for our Valentine’s Day bake sale fundraiser. Love your writing and your recipes(also, I would like to take a nap in that bowl of frosting…does that make me weird?)
Would it be weird if I wanted to join you? In a totally fully-clothed, non-creepy kind of way…like a hot tub.
It might make you weird that you would NAP in that delicious frosting!!! I would lick the bowl clean in about 5 seconds!! LOL!! Have eaten these bars made by Kate & they are to die for!!! ♥️
It looks like you found a way to redeem making sugar cookies in my eyes! They are normally so time-consuming that just hearing the words “make” and “sugar cookies” together can cause tears, but these look very do-able for the holidays/special events when you want that yummy sugar cookie/lots of frosting-goodness! Thanks!!!
Please don’t judge my level of pathetic here, but ever since your IG post today I have been jonesing (see what I did there? 😉 to see what this post was going to be. I guess creamed butter and sugar speak to me. There’s nothing my lazy self loves more than cookie bars. All the deliciousness of cookies with minimal work? Yes, please. And can I tell you that your tip to spoon flour into the measuring cup has changed my baked goods? For reals. I have a whole lotta butter in my fridge that will be turned into sugar cookie bars tomorrow. Probably right after I get home from the gym. Ha! 🙂
I loved the cute handprints before you smoothed out the dough! I don’t know how many times I have chosen NOT to make sugar cookies just because of the tedious rolloing-out process. Maybe next time you make these you could measure the flour by weight so we can get just the right amount. ❤️