What You’ll Need:
• Butter: You’ll want softened salted butter for this recipe. Butter will go into both the cookies and the vanilla buttercream center. If you only have unsalted butter, you’ll want to add a pinch of salt to the cookie dough and frosting.
• Sugar: We will just use granulated sugar in the cookie dough since it is a sugar cookie base.
• Eggs: Just two eggs are needed in this recipe.
• LorAnn Orange Bakery Emulsion, Natural: I love using this flavoring because it is water-based so the flavor doesn’t bake out of the cookie. It brings a natural, strong orange flavor that is very pleasant.
• Flour: Just all purpose flour needed for these cookies.
• Baking Powder: This is the leavening agent we will use in these cookies, this will give the cookie a little bit of lift while also keeping it super soft.
• Food Coloring: For bold colors, I always use LorAnn’s Liquid Gel Food Coloring because they are highly pigmented. With just a few drops, you can get your desired color. Plus they are conveniently packaged in a squeeze bottle, which makes it so easy to use and mess free!
• Powdered Sugar: The powdered sugar is used in the vanilla buttercream center of the cookie.
• Milk: Just use what you have on hand. You’ll use just a tad in the buttercream to get it the right consistency.
• Vanilla Extract: LorAnn’s Vanilla Extract is rich and creamy. This goes into the buttercream to give it that classic vanilla ice cream flavor.
My Tips:
• Use an electric stand mixer if you have one. If not, an electric hand mixer will work fine.
• Cream together your butter and sugar for 2 minutes. Creaming together ingredients is different than just mixing them. When you cream together the butter and sugar, you want to mix and a higher speed until the mixture is light in color and very fluffy in texture. The mixture should not feel grainy from the sugar.
• Don’t over mix the flour. Over mixing the flour will give your final cookie a stiffer, dryer texture which is not the goal with these cookies!
• Finished cookie dough texture should be like Playdoh. Once your cookie dough is complete, it should be easy to work with. It shouldn’t be sticky in any way and it also should not be at all dry and crumbly. Humidity of your climate can sometimes mess with baking so if your cookie dough feels too dry, add a tsp or so of water. If your cookie dough is sticky, add up to ¼ cup more flour.
• Use a large cookie scoop. Like I said earlier, these are giant bakery style cookies. I use a 3.25 ounce scoop for each cookie. That holds just about 1/3 cup of cookie dough for each and every cookie! If you don’t have a cookie scoop, you can just use your 1/3 cup measuring cup to help portion out the dough.
• Make and freeze your frosting ahead of time. This will make your life a little easier when it comes to making your cookies. It is important to use frozen frosting in the middle of the cookie so the frosting doesn’t melt out of the cookie while baking.
• Allow the cookies to cool completely on the pan. This is super important when it comes to giant cookies. The cookies will continue to bake while the are cooling on the hot pan. Allowing them to finish baking out of the oven will help them stay nice and soft.
• Store in the fridge or freezer. The cookies can be kept for up to one week in the fridge or up to three months in the freezer.
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