Soft Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Submitted by *Parsley*

"These are my oldest sons favorite cutouts. The sour cream helps them stay soft , moist and get kind of "puffy" when you bake them. Prep time does NOT include chilling time for dough."

 

• Ready In: 20mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Yields: 5 dozen

ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 cups sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup light sour cream
• 2 teaspoons orange zest (or lemon peel)
• 4 1⁄3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt

directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat together sugar and butter until creamy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and sour cream until fluffy. Mix in orange peel.
2. In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture into creamed mixture. Beat until well-combined.
3. Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap or wax paper. Chill for about 2 hours.
4. When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 400.
5. Roll dough on to lightly floured surface to about 1/8"-1/4" thickness. Cut with cookie cutters and place cookies on ungreased cookie sheets about 2" apart. (If desired, sprinkle with colored sugars). Bake at 400 for 6-9 minutes or until edges slightly golden. Cool about 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool.

Reviews

[Seasons]

We tried this Gluten-Free per my sis. She gave me the substitutions below. 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup apple sauce, egg replacer, 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum. My sis used egg we can't do that... very good... they taste more like animal cookies or like vanilla wafers. (that's because of our flour) Thanks!! I may try more butter or more apple sauce next time

 

[lw675]

Maybe I did something wrong, but the dough came out extremely sticky, even after hours in the fridge. We tried cutouts on a lightly floured surface, but by the time I pried them up, they didn't look like what they were supposed to. So we ended up making plain round ball cookies. BUT, even after all that, the taste was wonderful!<br/><br/>UPDATE: A couple of days later, I cooked the second half using more flour and parchment paper under the dough, and it made all the difference. The cookies turned out perfectly!

 

[Kobi Brock]

This is the BEST soft sugar cookie recipe ever! I've never found one I truly like and this will be my standard. Thanks!

 

[cookingpompom]

Made these for the kids to decorate as our arts and crafts time today. I made the dough yesterday and kept it in the fridge o'night. These were surprisingly better than I had thought they would be! I liked that they are "strong" enough to with stand little hands as they are decorating them - shortbread is my personal fav. but far too brittle to decorate. Thanks for a great recipe. I halved the recipe and still got 3 doz. medium sizes biscuits/cookies!

 

[mrsteacher22]

Cookies stayed soft and it is hard for me to make cookies that stay soft. Were well loved by family and kids at school. Yummy!