I've tried two recipes now for sugar cookies, and both end up with the nice cute little cutout shapes losing all form and expanding into blobs with little shape. The snowmen and the christmas trees would be so cute to decorate too.

For a cookie to hold its shape better, should I be looking for a better recipe? Or should I be checking my oven to make sure it's really baking at 350?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Your recipe is probably too wet, with butter most likely. Look on this site for antonio74's cookie recipe and I am pretty sure there is also a tutorial. She does great cookies.
hth

What recipe did you use??? A lot of people on this site use the No Fail Sugar Cookie that is posted under recipes here. I have used it several times and absolutely LOVEEEEEE it. Holds it shape perfectly and you can flavor it the way you like it...

Depending on the recipe, sounds like maybe you left something out or if you use baking soda or powder, it wasn't expired was it??

Which recipe are you using? Also, before I bake any of my sugar cookies I pop them into the fridge or freezer for 10-20 min and then straight into the oven. This really helps to maintain their shape.

I was using recipes out of a couple of random cookbooks. The ratio of butter to flour was significantly higher than the ration of the no fail recipe mentioned here, so I will give the no fail a shot. Thanks for the tip.

Hi,
I use the Martha Stewart sugar cookie recipe and get many many compliments on it. I also flavor my icing with either vanilla, orange or almond, and that seems to give my cookies a more interesting flavor. But I digress...

To stop cookies from expanding, freeze/refrigerate the cookies before putting them in the oven. Also, another tip I was given is before rolling out the scraps to cut out more cookies, place it in the fridge to chill. This does make it difficult to roll out, though, so sometimes I roll it out, cut the shapes, and refrigerate it.

I've tried a few recipes and find that freezing/chilling the cookie dough before baking really helps...

I agree with the freezing tip. I roll the dough between wax paper, pop it into the freezer for about 10 miutes. Take it out, cut my shapes and refreeze the cut cookies for an additional 10-15 minutes before baking. These bake perfectly with no distortion at all.

Hi,
I make cookies regularly for showers, birthdays, holidays, etc. To keep their shape, I refrigerate the dough AND the cookie sheet. The cookies hold their shapes wonderfully. I had the same problem when I first started baking cookies.