Sugar Cookie Recipe With Sour Cream
These pillowy soft Sour Cream Cookies have been made in the Midwest for generations. They’re bursting with nutmeg flavor and stay soft for at least a week after they are baked.
My Family’s Secret Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
This is probably the most personal recipe on this blog – my family’s Christmas cookie recipe!
My mom got this recipe for Sour Cream Cookies from my grandma, who got it from a coworker, who probably got it from a local newspaper here in the Midwest.
What makes it so special? Two things – flavor and texture. The flavor largely comes from a generous spoonful of nutmeg. While most sugar cookie cutouts have very little flavor other than sugary dough, these ones have a subtle spice flavor.
And the sour cream keeps them extremely soft. They even stay soft for at least a week after they’re baked – an impressive feat for a sugar cookie.
My mom generously helped me translate our family recipe into a foolproof written version, and even helped me make the cookies for this post (those are her hands rolling out the dough in the step-by-step photos below).
What does sour cream do in baking?
Sour cream is magic! It serves several functions in baked goods such as these sour cream sugar cookies:
- Moisture Booster. Sour cream adds extra moisture to the cookie dough, ensuring a soft and tender final product.
- Flavor Enhancer. The subtle tang of the sour cream complements the sweetness of the other ingredients.
- Leavening Agent. The acidity of the sour cream reacts with the baking soda, resulting in a light and airy cookie.
Why you will love this Sour Cream Cookies Recipe
- These are pillowy soft cookies that are bursting with flavor. How many Christmas cookies can you really say that about?
- They stay soft for a week (maybe even a little longer) after they are baked, meaning you can make them well ahead of the holiday.
- The dough is easy to work with, allowing you to cut it into various shapes and sizes without compromising its integrity.
“I had lost my grandma’s recipe last year in a house fire, so one of those small things that hit me when trying to make that holiday cheer. THANKFULLY I found this recipe and it will now be our family traditional Christmas cookie. Husband wasn’t a fan of grandma’s recipe but said I should receive a cookie award for these. Kids loved decorating them. Sturdy enough for little hands to grab, soft and chewy, subtle nutmeg flavor and holds details of cookie cutters very well.”
—Kris
Sour Cream Cookie Recipe Ingredients
- granulated sugar – the sweet element of the cookies.
- all-purpose flour – the main structure of the cookies.
- unsalted butter – provides richness and flavor to both the cookies and the frosting.
- egg – acts as a binder and contributes to structure.
- sour cream – the star ingredient, adding moisture, tenderness and tang!
- baking soda – the leavening agent.
- ground nutmeg – adds a warm, nutty flavor.
- vanilla extract – adds a sweet and aromatic essence to both the cookies and the frosting.
- powdered sugar – the main component of the frosting.
- whole milk – to adjust the consistency of the frosting.
“Thanks for this recipe. It is a tradition for me to make them with my grandbabies for Christmas every year. They love them! They love decorating them too!”
—Linda
How to make Sour Cream Cookies
1. BEAT. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. ADD. Add the egg, sour cream, baking soda, nutmeg and vanilla and mix until well combined.
3. FLOUR. Gradually beat in the flour, then cover and chill overnight.
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4. ROOM TEMP. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Meanwhile, allow the dough to come to room temperature for 15 minutes.
5. ROLL OUT! Flour your work surface and rolling pin very well. In batches, roll chunks of dough to about 1/8-inch thickness.
6. CUT. Cut the rolled-out dough using your favorite cookie cutters.
7. BAKE. Bake cookies 6 to 12 minutes (baking time is dependent on a number of factors; more info in recipe card below) or until they just begin to become light golden brown around the edges.
Refer to the above photo of the star-shaped cookies to see what you’re looking for when the cookies are done.
Carefully transfer cookies to parchment or waxed paper and let cool completely before frosting.
8. MAKE FROSTING. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat powdered sugar and butter until the butter is broken down into small bits. Add the milk and vanilla and beat until frosting is smooth. Divide frosting into several bowls and stir in food coloring a few drops at a time until desired color is reached.
9. FROST AND SPRINKLE. Spread the frosting over the cookies and immediately sprinkle with sprinkles or sparkling sugar.
Home Chef Tips For Sour Cream Cut Out Cookies
- I learned this the hard way so you don’t have to – make sure your nutmeg is fresh. If you’re not sure, buy a new bottle. It will make all the difference in flavor in these cookies.
- We like to use a variety of different shapes and sizes of cookie cutters. For best results, bake small cookies together, and large cookies together, in different batches. Smaller ones will bake faster than larger ones.
- You can re-roll and cut the scrap dough that remains after using your cookie cutters, but just once! After re-rolling and cutting again, toss the scraps out – they’ll be too tough to use again.
Ideas for decorating Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
If you haven’t noticed from the photos by now, my family has a lot of weird shapes in our cookie cutter arsenal. Nobody is really sure why we have a chicken and a shamrock mixed in with the Santa and Christmas tree cutters.
They were acquired somewhere along the way, and have just become a family tradition. We embrace the oddity, and have even started adding new unique shapes, like a squirrel and Michigan’s lower peninsula.
So, embrace the weirdness yourself and use whatever cookie cutters you have on hand! Then, frost using the frosting recipe in the card below, and sprinkle with your favorite sprinkles.
How to Store Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
To keep your cookies fresh, store in airtight gallon Ziploc freezer bags, at room temperature, for up to one week.
Can the dough for Sour Cream Sugar Cookies be frozen?
Yes, the dough for sour cream cookies can be frozen. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and then a freezer bag, and store in the freezer up to three months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling out, cutting and baking.
More Foxes Love Lemons Favorites
Sour Cream Cut Out Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened slightly (but NOT melted) in microwave 1 cup
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 cup full fat sour cream at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour plus more if needed, and additional for rolling
For the Frosting and Decorating:
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- ¼ cup + 2 teaspoons whole milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Food coloring for dying frosting
- Sprinkles or sparkling sugar for decorating
Instructions
Make the Cookies:
- In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar at medium-high speed 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- Add egg, sour cream, baking soda, nutmeg and vanilla and mix at medium speed until well combined.
- Gradually beat in flour. This will be a very thick dough. If dough seems too thin and sticky, gradually add additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time and mix until combined and you have a nice thick dough (do not add more than 4 additional tablespoons of flour). Cover and chill overnight.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Meanwhile, allow dough to come to room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Flour work surface and rolling pin very well. In batches, roll chunks of dough (about 1 cup dough) to about 1/8-inch thickness (it is helpful to flatten dough with your hands into a disc before you start rolling it out).
- Cut dough using your favorite cookie cutters.
- In batches, as you finish rolling and cutting them, transfer cookies to unlined cookie sheets. Baking time is very dependent on exact oven temperature, cookie sheet you use, and size of cookie cutters. Transfer cookies to oven and bake cookies 6 to 12 minutes or until they just begin to become light golden brown around the edges (start checking them at 6 minutes until you know how long your oven will take). Cookies will be very soft when they come out of the oven. Carefully transfer to parchment paper and let cool completely before frosting.
Make the Frosting:
- In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat powdered sugar and butter at medium speed 2 minutes or until butter is broken down into small bits. Add milk and vanilla and beat at medium-high speed 2 to 3 minutes or until frosting is smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Frosting will be very thick! When you start adding food coloring to it, it will thin out, so do not adjust the consistency yet.
- Divide frosting into several bowls and stir in food coloring a few drops at a time until desired color is reached. If frosting is still too thick, stir in milk a few drops at a time until frosting reaches a thick spreadable consistency. Spread frosting over cookies and immediately sprinkle with sprinkles or sparkling sugar.
Notes
- Make sure your nutmeg is fresh. If you're not sure, buy a new bottle. It will make all the difference in flavor in these cookies.
- We like to use a variety of different shapes and sizes of cookie cutters. For best results, bake small cookies together, and large cookies together, in different batches. Smaller ones will bake faster than larger ones.
- You can re-roll and cut the scrap dough that remains after using your cookie cutters, but just once! After re-rolling and cutting again, toss the scraps out – they'll be too tough to use again.
LOL, I’ve made these for years and we lovingly call them “Fat Cookies” because of all the butter and sour cream….not to mention the cream cheese frosting I use!
Haha I love that, Ann. Hilarious but delicious.
My mom also made sour cream & nutmeg cut out Christmas cookies and so I have never been a fan of other regular old sugar cookie recipes either. I’m not sure if this is exactly what our recipe was but it’s close enough for me. And I’m not sure what we did to ours growing up but think we added too much flour, rolled too thin or always over baked due to distracted cooking, but ours were thin and sometimes crispy which now I associated with a proper cookie. 😂 my family likes fluffier so I’ll start with properly dealt with dough and then abuse the last half to be brown and crispy. Can’t wait.
“Abuse the last half to be brown and crispy.” I LOLed, Carol, but I know exactly what you mean. These cookies have to be watched like a hawk, and honestly, pulled before you *think* they are done, to main their fluffiness and softness. Good luck this year 🙂
We must have grown up around the same time- I remember the cookie! I asked my mother for the recipe and she some how lost the recipe along the way. Well, I just made the dought and can’t wait to make them to bring back a childhood memory. Thank you for sharing!
Oh my gosh, I am so glad to hear this, Cindy. I hope your cookies turned out amazing and are everything you remembered!
Followed the recipe. Had high hopes, but the texture was not favorable to us – they came out thick and soft, but…fluffy almost, and reminded us of a biscuit ish cookie. The recipe lacks salt too, which didn’t help flavor. Used fresh grated nutmeg. The cookies did hold their shape though, which was nice.
Sorry these cookies weren’t what you were looking for, SK. My family likes the soft and fluffy texture, but it might not be for everyone.
I had lost my grandma”s recipe last year in a house fire, so one of those small things that hit me when trying to make that holiday cheer. THANKFULLY I found this recipe and it will now be our family traditional Christmas cookie. The dough amount looks surprisingly small-but rolls out easily after being chilled (life got busy and sat for a week in the fridge in a container with a lid). I used the baking soda as mentioned in a previous review and they turned out AMAZING. Husband wasn’t a fan of grandma”s recipe but said I should receive a cookie award for these. Kids loved decorating them. Sturdy enough for little hands to grab, soft and chewy, subtle nutmeg flavor and holds details of cookie cutters very well.
Wanted to mention, though the dough looked like a small amount, it made 8 trays of cookies.
Oh my gosh, Kris, thank you so much for this sweet message. I am so glad that this recipe was able to bring you some holiday cheer after what sounds like a very tough year. Happy New Year!
Love this recipe. Can the dough be frozen?
To be honest, we haven’t ever tried to freeze this dough, Jane. However, I talked to a friend with lots of baking experience, and she says just about any type of cookie dough can be frozen. She thinks it’ll be fine! If you do end up trying it, please let me know how it turns out 🙂
Dear Lori,
Thanks for this recipe. It is a tradition for me to make them with my grandbabies for Christmas every year. They love them! I kinda like them thick so I add 1 teaspoon of of baking powder to each batch! Never had a problem with stickiness, just add flour accordingly. They love decorating them too!
I’m so glad to hear these are a hit with you and your grandchildren, Linda!
Hi Sheena! It IS a sticky dough. Make sure the dough is throughly chilled before you try to roll out the cookies, and make sure your surface and rolling pin are well floured. Good luck!
I love all things weird, odd and random so I think your cookie cutter shapes are fabulous! I’m especially digging the fox, even though they break easily. Just sweep the broken bits directly into your mouth. Problems solved!
Fabulous! I am in love with those foxes. 🙂
Thanks, Sara!
Nice looking cookies Lori! I like the addition of sour cream in the cookies – I’ll need to give them a try! Do you grate your own nutmeg? Pinned…
Thank you, Deb! While I love freshly-grated nutmeg generally, I don’t use it for this. Because we’ve always made this recipe using jarred ground nutmeg, I stick with that. I’m afraid that freshly grated would be overpowering, and I don’t want to ruin a batch of cookies finding out. I do make sure to have a new, freshly-opened jar of ground nutmeg, though!
Your cookies looks GREAT. I love the different shapes…stories are such a big part of holiday traditions.
Thanks so much, Betsy! This “trial batch” is already long gone. Can’t wait to bake the next batch, but am waiting until a few days before Christmas 🙂
Make sure you make extra for ole Dad.
I am happy to participate in the cookie tradition – both in the giving, to your mom, of new shapes (Michigan, palm tree, wolf, and a new one upcoming this year) and the tasting. I can literally polish off 5 to 6 of these bad boys a day around the holidays. Though, most of the time, my brain outweighs the stomach and I limit it to 2 or 3. They are just soooooooo good!
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I am adding it to my binder and to my list of cookies to bake this holiday!
Yay! I hope you love them as much as my family does! One tip I forgot to mention – make sure you have PLENTY of flour on your board and rolling pin when you’re rolling them out. The dough is pretty sticky. Oh, and put the extra dough back in the fridge when you’re not working with it. Good luck!
Great job, Lor!! Of course, it touched my heart. Love the foxes!! ~Mom
I’m glad. Sadly, these will be the only foxes you see – I’m not making more. They’re too delicate, and they break as soon as you try to move them anywhere. Crate & Barrel obviously didn’t test those cookie cutters!