Valentines Day wouldn’t be complete without a batch of homemade sugar cookies. There are hundreds if not thousands of recipes out there but after trying way too many to count, I decided to create my own. My ideal sugar cookie has to be super soft, not bland and topped with cream cheese frosting. This has become my go to recipe and everyone who tastes these cookies agrees that they are some of the best if not the best they have ever had!
This is the perfect recipe to make with your kids. My almost 4 year old son, Oaks loves helping me roll out the cookie dough and push the cookie cutter into the dough. This requires a little bit of extra patience from mom, but the memories of making these cookies with my son makes it 100% worth it!
We love to frost our cookies using a piping bag and different piping tips. I find this makes the whole process less messy. If you don’t have piping bags or piping tips, you can just frost them with a butter knife, the old fashioned way. Either way, the end result is the same, absolutely delicious!
Tips & Tricks:
- You can use these sugar cookies for any holiday. I make them every Christmas with my kids using Christmas themed cookie cutters. Use them for Valentines Day, St. Patricks Day, 4th of July, Halloween, if they have a cookie cutter themed to that holiday, make them!
- I am a huge fan of almond extract, if you aren’t a fan, feel free to replace it with more vanilla extract or you could even use lemon extract instead!
- The chilling is necessary, otherwise your dough will be way too sticky!
- When making the frosting, make sure your butter isn’t too soft, otherwise your frosting will be too runny. You want the butter at room temperature but not softened.
- Make sure you whip your butter and cream cheese for the full time, if not longer, to ensure you don’t get any cream cheese chunks left in your finished frosting.
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
For the cookies:
- 2 cups salted butter, softened
- 2 1/4 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp almond extract
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 6 1/2 cups all purpose flour
For the frosting:
- 3 sticks salted butter, room temperature
- 3, 8 oz blocks cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- For the cookies: In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients minus the sugar.
- In a stand mixer or large bowl beat butter and sugar together for 2 minutes.
- Add eggs, sour cream, almond and vanilla extracts. Beat for 2-3 minutes, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl a couple times. Mixture may look curdled but that is totally fine.
- Add dry ingredients a cup or two at a time until fully incorporated. Mixture should still be a bit sticky.
- With a rubber spatula, scrape sides of the bowl so that the dough isn’t stuck to it. Lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap and spray with cooking spray.
- Transfer cookie dough to plastic wrap and cover tightly.
- Store in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, up to overnight.
- Once chilled, heavily flour a clean work surface and roll cookie dough into ⅜ thick round.
- Using cookie cutters, cut dough into shapes, reforming dough and repeating until all the dough has been used.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Transfer cookies to the cookie sheet, making sure to space cookies with enough room for expanding.
- Bake for 6-7 minutes for small cookies, 9-10 minutes for large cookies. I used 5 inch cookie cutters and my cookies took 9 minutes. You want no browning whatsoever, the cookies should still be really light in color. It’s better to pull them out too early than too late.
- Transfer cookies to a cooling rack or a clean surface.
- For the frosting: Cream together butter and cream cheese for 4-5 minutes until no chunks of butter or cream cheese remain.
- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until fully incorporated.
- Add extracts and beat for 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Once cookies are cooled, decorate them with the frosting. I like to store my cookies in the fridge so the frosting can set up a little bit and not be so soft. These are super soft cookies so letting them chill in the fridge helps them stay together a little bit better. They are great cold right out of the fridge, or if you prefer you can let them come to room temperature and eat them.
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