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If you are going to try one new cookie this year, make it my old fashioned cut out sour cream sugar cookies. Close your eyes and picture a soft, pillowy sugar cookie that has a slight sour cream tang to it, paired with a delightful hint of nutmeg. That classic old fashioned pairing of sour cream and nutmeg, you just can’t beat it for flavour!
How to Make Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
My family makes these for Easter, as they lend themselves to the most amazing Easter colours and if you are so inclined, shapes as well. These can also be decorated for Christmas with lovely green and red icing! I am sure by now that you all know how much I don’t like sugar cookies – thus the reason that one of my very first popular recipes here on the The Kitchen Magpie almost 6 years ago was my Lemon Sugar Cookies! Isn’t that crazy that I have been writing and sharing recipes for you all for that long?
I don’t really think that “sugar cookies” really sums up these cookies.
Yes, you do place them on waxed paper.
And yes, you do enlist your daughters help in rolling them up in that waxed paper as well. This is the easy way of making these cookies if you want a nice uniform, round cookie. You can roll them out and cut out shapes that match the holiday you want them for, but there’s a really good reason why we didn’t do that this time around.
A short and cute 2-year-old reason, to be exact.
Yes, Auntie’s baby (never mind that she’s 2, she’s always going to be the baby of the family, so I’ll call her what I want) was coming over to be babysat while Mr Magpie and Wyatt went to a Scotch tasting. Add in the fact that I was MISSING the Scotch tasting because I wasn’t feeling that hot, plus the fact that I had a busy toddler coming over and well, the fact that we made cookies at all was a miracle.
Cut out shapes were NOT happening this time around.
From the looks of it, these two weren’t that sad that I didn’t feel like making cut out cookies.
It could be all the sugar, but I do believe that these two had one heckuva time making these sour cream sugar cookies.
These sour cream sugar cookies are the cookie bomb.
The best part in my opinion, is that you don’t have to make Royal Icing to decorate them, indeed, they are a million times better when frosted with my famous buttercream icing recipe.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for Royal Icing, but it is fiddly and time consuming.
My buttercream icing?
You just swirl it right onto these sour cream sugar cookies and away you go.
It also helps that my buttercream icing is the best and I don’t say that modestly at all. I love that stuff. My recipe hasn’t changed since I came up with it. Salted butter and heavy cream, it’s also THE most popular recipe on my entire website!
Not to mention, it made it into my cookbook as well, so that right there tells you that these sour cream cookies are literally going to be the best ones that you have ever eaten, I promise!
Someone had to help Auntie with the photographs, of course.
How can you resist with your helper is this gosh darn cute?
Sure, “help” might make things about oh, ten times longer that it would usually take, but I can’t resist that cute smile.
Here’s a good example of that “helping”.
She does made a good toddler hand model, I guess.
That aside, the fun of making these sour cream cookies is in making them with the kids. My son was gone to a friend’s house and we girls had the afternoon to ourselves. There were sprinkles and icing and dough pretty much on every surface in my house, but it was worth every minute cleaning it up.
Now while we didn’t let Ellie get into the Swedish raspberries ( because holy smokes I can’t think of anything more chokable that a round, gummy raspberry that little toddler teeth can’t chew!) she had an absolute blast using the sanding sugars.
Those you can get in almost infinite colours at your local bulk store, I always just head to Bulk Barn to stock up on mine.
Ok, seriously.
I know that I love turquoise. You guys, if I could have everything in my life the color of this cookie and the purple sanding sugar, I would die a happy woman. This blue and purple cookie is my favourite color combination in the world.
So the next holiday coming up is Easter and you can tell that the girls and I were in Easter mode! These sour cream sugar cookies can be made for every single holiday of the year, just simple change the icing colors and the toppings and you are done!
You can see that the Swedish Raspberries are absolutely adorable on top, and we considered M&M’s, but they weren’t matchy-matchy for the icing colors. You could theme these for a birthday party as well!
Happy baking babes! Love you more than cookies! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below! By the way, these cookies are AMAZING after sitting in a container for one or two days. Make them ahead of time for the best flavour!
Karlynn
Old Fashioned Cut-Out Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup full fat sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup softened salted butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Combine the sour cream and baking soda; set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg and vanilla.
- Whisk the flour and nutmeg together, then add to the bowl, alternating with the sour cream mixture until they are both combined.
- Roll in wax paper and refrigerate for an hour. If you are using cut-outs, cover in the bowl and refrigerate for an hour.
- Remove from the fridge and slice into round circles about 1/2 inch thick ( these are NOT thin cookies!) or alternately, roll out the dough until it’s 1/2 inch thick and cut out the cookies.
- Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the bottom has browned slightly. Depending on your oven, this could take up to 15 minutes. Just watch the bottoms!
- Remove and cool cookies completely.
- Prepare a batch of my Buttercream Frosting.
- Frost the cookies and decorate with sprinkles of your choice!
- Keep in a sealed container for up to 4 days – these also freeze very well!
Nutrition
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Sara says
I’m wondering if I did something wrong? These were pretty impossible to cut out. The dough was just too sticky, even after chilling for more than an hour. It got warm and sticky so quickly after coming back out of the fridge.
Valerie says
I made these last night and my 8 year old loves them. They came out soft and fluffy and the buttercream frosting just made them even better.
Jessica Ancheta says
Just wondering why there is baking soda but no salt? Odd
Karlynn Johnston says
Salted butter is listed in the ingredients! It works perfectly!
Taylor Hartanov says
These were SO GOOD! Very light and pillowy and the buttercream frosting recipe just rounds this out so well!