If you’re baking drop-style sugar cookies, a bit of spreading isn’t the end of the world. With cut-outs, however, it’s just tragic.
The snowman? Unrecognizable.
The tree? A triangle-shaped mess.
The heart? A sad blob.
I’ve been there more than I’d like to admit. But thankfully, after countless batches, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for keeping sugar cookies from spreading.
Here’s what I found after some trial and error.
Spoiler alert: It’s not a one-step fix!
Why Your Sugar Cookies Are Spreading
Usually, when a batch of sugar cookies spreads, you can assume that something went wrong with the butter and flour.
Let me explain.
Butter enriches the flavor, adds moisture, and helps bind ingredients. But, most importantly, it holds onto air pockets, which expand upwards as the dough bakes to keep your sugar cookies nice and fluffy.
However, only room-temperature butter can do the job well.
So your sugar cookies might spread if:
- Your butter stick is too warm and soft.
- You didn’t chill the dough long enough.
- The baking temperature isn’t right, so the fat melts before the flour sets, creating flat, greasy puddles.
- The cookie dough doesn’t have enough flour to hold all that softened butter.
Of course, there could always be another culprit, like an excessive amount of baking soda. But, in most cases, it’s a flour and/or butter thing.
9 Tested-and-Tried Tips for Keeping Sugar Cookies From Spreading
Here’s what you can do to reduce spreading in your next cookie batch:
1 – Make Sure You’re Using the Right Sugar Cookie Recipe
Some recipes are good enough for chewy, drop-style sugar cookies. Others use more flour and are a better fit for sturdy cut-outs.
Double-check the recipe you’re using.
Don’t forget to spoon and level your flour rather than scooping and packing it tightly. If possible, use a kitchen scale to save yourself the hassle.
2 – Soften Your Butter Properly
Few sugar cookie recipes call for melted butter. For the majority of the recipes out there, you’ll want to soften the stick to room temperature.
Now, here’s where things get tricky.
Some people don’t know what “room-temperature butter” should look (and feel) like. It’s actually colder than most would expect.
Room-temperature butter should be around 67°F (some folks even say 60°F is enough), and when you press your finger into the stick, it should only make an indentation. Your finger shouldn’t sink into it or slide off.
In an ideal scenario, I leave the butter on the counter for an hour or so before I start baking. When I’m in a rush, one of these hacks saves the day:
- Putting the butter stick in a hot bath.
- Grating the butter or chopping it down into small cubes (to increase the surface area) before leaving it for 15–20 minutes.
- Whacking the wrapped stick with a rolling pin.
Of course, bakers are getting more creative nowadays. There’s the hot cup trick and “body heat” hack.
Give them a shot if you’d like. But no matter what you do, don’t ignore or overdo the butter-softening step.
3 – Know When to Stop Creaming
Creaming is critical for sugar cookies.
Remember: Your goal here isn’t to mix. You just want to aerate the butter (basically mechanically leavening) to keep it from melting too soon.
Don’t cream enough, and the cookies will spread. Cream too much, and they’ll end up gummy.
Usually, 2–3 minutes are enough, but you can also use the color and texture as indicators.
Under-creamed butter and sugar are grainy and medium yellow. Over-creaming, on the other hand, leaves the mixture dense and white.
You want it pale yellow and fluffy for best results!
4 – It’s Okay to Add a Bit More Flour
After creaming, you’ll mix in the dry ingredients and feel the sugar cookie dough with your hand.
Is it too soft? Does it feel sticky to the touch?
If your answer to both questions is “yes,” then your dough doesn’t have enough flour.
This not only makes rolling tricker, but it also means that there’s nothing to hold the butter once it starts melting in the oven.
The result? Flat, greasy sugar cookies that hardly represent all the effort and time you’ve spent rolling and shaping.
To avoid this heartbreaking scenario, add extra flour to the dough.
The trick is to do it gradually—tablespoon by tablespoon until the dough doesn’t feel so soft and sticky anymore.
5 – Go Easy on the Baking Soda
Generally speaking, leavening agents don’t do a lot of heavy lifting in sugar cookie dough. However, some recipes will use them to improve the texture.
If yours does call for baking powder, you’re probably okay.
But baking soda? Oh, that’s when things get a little tricky.
You see, baking powder and baking powder aren’t the same thing. I won’t get into all the chemistry, but the gist of it is this:
- Baking powder helps make the cookies light and fluffy.
- Baking soda causes the cookies to spread and get all chewy.
So using baking soda would be okay-ish for drop-style sugar cookie recipes, where you don’t mind a bit of spreading.
For cut-outs, I’d look for a baking-soda-free recipe.
6 – Roll and Chill
The last thing you want is to let the butter melt even before you pop the sugar cookies into the oven. So you’ll want to chill the dough for at least an hour.
Not all recipes will mention this, but it’s important nevertheless!
Some people pop their rolled dough into the freezer first, which both makes cutting easier (for when you want sharp edges!) and helps reduce spreading.
I recommend working in small portions.
But if you didn’t split the dough into small portions before rolling and found that it got wet and greasy, just pop it back in the fridge for a few minutes before you continue rolling and cutting.
7 – Chill Again
Okay, so you have a batch of cut-out sugar cookies. All that’s left is to pop it in the oven, right?
Well, you could do that. You could also pop the cookies into the fridge for a bit first.
Remember that while you were meticulously looking for the best way to cut cookies (without wasting valuable real estate on the sheet), the dough was getting warmer and warmer.
Maybe you also left them out while waiting for the oven to preheat, and the butter melted even more. A short chilling period before baking will help sort this mess out.
8 – Take Your Oven’s Temperature Markings With a Grain of Salt
Speaking of preheating your oven, I’d like to point out that ovens can’t be trusted.
Just because you set the oven to the right temperature (mentioned in the recipe) doesn’t mean the air inside will actually get to that exact temperature.
There are a lot of factors at work here—the manufacturer, the model, preheating time, your kitchen’s ambient temperature, etc. So, the heat level can be far from exact.
What can you do about it?
Well, the best solution would be baking in the recipe author’s oven—not so feasible.
The second best solution is to buy an oven thermometer to try to get as close as possible to the recommended temperature.
9 – Don’t Overcrowd the Sugar Cookies on the Tray
No, I’m not just recommending this as a safety net in case your sugar cookies spread. If you follow all the previous tips, they should hold their shape and size nicely.
But here me out—heat can’t circulate well in an overcrowded tray.
You went through the trouble of buying a thermometer to make sure the air inside your oven is hot enough to set the flour before the butter melts.
I’m sure you don’t want to throw all that money and effort away just to arrange more cookies on one tray. Leave a couple of inches of space between cookies, and thank me later!
Final Thoughts
A final word of advice? If you’re baking for a special occasion and can’t afford to risk a full batch, do a test cookie first.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.