Grandma's Sour Cream Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making cookies soft and chewy? ›

Cornstarch gives the cookies that ultra soft consistency we all love. Plus, it helps keep the cookies beautifully thick. We use the same trick when making shortbread cookies. Egg yolk: Another way to promise a super chewy chocolate chip cookie is to use an extra egg yolk.

This is a common baking mistake, and it's easily fixable. Adding too much sugar to cookie dough can result in a number of issues, such as making the dough too sticky, causing it to spread too much during baking, and making the final product overly sweet.

Add extracts

A teaspoon or two of extracts will noticeably boost flavor when blended into your sugar cookie mix. Vanilla is the obvious choice. For a more intriguing flavor, add both vanilla and almond extracts. Rum, maple and anise are other delicious varieties to consider.

Almond Extract: For a twist on the traditional sugar cookie flavor, try adding a small amount of almond extract. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and adjust according to your preference. Citrus Zest: Incorporate the zest of citrus fruits like lemon, orange, or lime into the dough. The zest adds a bright and refreshing flavor.

Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.

Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.

In that role, white sugar aerates the dough when creamed with butter for thick and puffy cookies. Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more.

Unless you want extra-crispy cookies, avoid overmixing your dough. "Overmixing your dough will result in flatter, crispier cookies," Cowan said. If you overmix, you will end up aerating (adding air to) the dough, which causes the cookies to rise and then fall, leaving you with flat cookies.

What happens when you bake without brown sugar? To be succinct, the resulting baked good could be slightly drier or more crisp. Without the excess moisture from the molasses in the brown sugar, the final cookie won't be as chewy and the final bread might be drier.

Can you roll out store bought sugar cookie dough? ›

BAKED SUGAR COOKIES + MELTED CHOCOLATE + SPRINKLES

Combine the classic sprinkle candy with baked store bought sugar cookie dough for the ultimate in sugar cookie treats. Just roll inch dough balls and then press them into circles with a cup. Bake and then dip one side in melted chocolate and nonpareil sprinkles.

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies.

Chilling the dough is a key step in making sugar cookies, especially when you're making cut-outs. Even if you're tight on time, make sure to get the dough in the fridge, or even the freezer, even if it's only for a little while. Skip this step, and the dough will be sticky, and much harder to work with.

"This allows the dry ingredients time to soak up the wet ones, which results in a firmer dough. It leads to a marvelously chewy, chocolate-rich cookie." So yes, resting your cookie dough makes better cookies.

There's an ingredient that will make your cookies extra flexible and soft. It's corn syrup. That's it! That, my friend, is the secret ingredient to the best SOFTEST chocolate chip cookies.

Bread. You might be familiar with this tip, as the method is as old as the recipe itself. Place the cookies inside an airtight container with a slice of bread, seal them, and leave for a few hours, preferably overnight.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.