Martha Stewart's Genius Hack Makes Decorating Sugar Cookies A Breeze

The queen of American domesticity, Martha Stewart, is here to make your holiday cookie-baking that much easier. Say goodbye to misshapen, oddly sized, and inelegant sugar cookies this year. If you want to create some of your best, most social media swoon-worthy, aesthetically-pleasing sugar cookies ever, Martha Stewart (and, more specifically, her Instagram account) have you covered. Just two days ago, Stewart posted on her Instagram some delicious-looking sugar cookies that were a bit more refined than your average homemade Christmas treat.

Each perfectly round, perfectly identical cookie was, rather than iced, covered in a minimalistic boundary of either pink or gold sugar crystals. Of course, we'd expect this type of perfectionism from Martha Stewart — but then Stewart let us in on a little secret, so we home bakers can all make similar cookies in our own kitchens. So, what exactly was her genius hack that makes decorating sugar cookies easier than ever and far more refined-looking?

Stewart wrote on Instagram, "Instead of icing this season's sugar cookies, we stamped out circles and edged them in two sizes of sanding sugar for full, colorful coverage. But here's a handy shortcut: Shape the dough into a log, coat it in sugar, and then chill, slice, and bake. Either way you play it, these will be a classic in your holiday baking rotation."

It's literally that easy. No more cookie cutters. No more icing/frosting. No more mess. Just put together your cookie dough, shape it into a log (which, while it takes some practice to get exactly right, isn't that hard, once you get the hang of it), per Canada Living. Stewart then recommended on Instagram to coat the dough in the sugar of your choice and then chill it. Slice evenly, bake, and you have beautiful, Martha Stewart-worthy holiday cookies. Who knew that gorgeous, sugar-rimmed cookies were so simple? Stewart's method is definitely easier than individually rolling each cookie in sugar after they're cut.

If you don't have your own sugar cookie recipe that you'd like to use with Stewart's handy little holiday baking hack, you're in luck. Stewart linked to her own recipe, which includes some extra tips for her slice-and-bake method.

The recipe yields about four dozen cookies (though you could easily cut it in half — unless you really do need 48 sugar cookies) and takes about an hour and 35 minutes to complete. All the ingredients are pretty standard baking fare too, except for the combination of fine and coarse sanding sugar, and the vanilla paste, which you may not already have on hand. Otherwise, her go-to sugar cookie recipe is simply sugar, salt, flour, butter and an egg. Just make sure that you have plenty of fridge space open before you work on this recipe; lots of refrigeration is necessary, including chilling your cookie sheets as needed.