Last night the kids helped me bake dozens and dozens of sugar cookies, both regular and chocolate. Always gotta have some chocolate!
It’s tradition to make sugar cookies close to Valentine’s Day. There are just some really neat ways to make hearts while decorating with Royal Icing! You can see some of them on a past Valentine Cookie post.
This year we stuck with regular buttercream frosting. I love watching the littles try their fine motor skills out. So much fun!
While we love our sugar cookie recipe I decided to try out a new one this year that doesn’t have near as many ingredients as our old one. This recipe is so good I could NOT. STOP. EATING. THE. DOUGH! I’m also sharing our recipe for Chocolate Cut Out Cookies.
Soft Sugar Cookies
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups sour cream
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 cups flour
Cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs, vanilla, and sour cream and mix well. Sift together dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Mix well. Wrap flattened dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut out with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
Chocolate Cut Out Cookies
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
10 TBSP cocoa
3 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Cream butter, sugar, and cocoa. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture. Wrap dough and refrigerate for 2 hours. (I put it in the freezer for about 1/2 hour). Roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes.
Thank you for sharing! And especially for sharing a chocolate cookie recipe as well. I have a hard time making anything dessert-like that doesn’t include chocolate. I’m planning on trying these this Friday with my family!! Do you think you the shortening in the first recipe really makes a difference? I don’t have any and I already bought loads of butter for this project.
I haven’t tried it in this particular recipe but I have successfully used butter for shortening in other sugar cookie recipes. I guess you could always make a half recipe and try it! Let me know if it works! I’d much rather use butter than shortening.
That sugar cookie recipe sounds dangerous! 🙂
The sour cream is the kicker. It makes the cookies soft and there is just a tiny trace of tart. Oh, so good! The lady I got the recipe from said she has it written in her mother’s handwriting but it was her grandmother’s recipe. It originally said “cream that has been soured.”
I love that you use the term “the littles”, too! We use that to describe some of ours. We also tend to use “the middles” when describing Jazz and Zydeco.
I see that Hershey has lost a tooth-so cute. Her hair is really looking good and growing in.
I’ll be trying that chocolate recipe….maybe chocolate shamrocks with green icing? That’s sounds good to me.
Yes, Hershey lost her first tooth Sunday evening! And can you believe the Tooth Fairy didn’t come? She left a note the next night saying the coyotes scared her away so she brought special fairy dust to make them sleepy so she could sneak past them and trade Hershey’s tooth for money. 🙂