Grandma's Sour Cream Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can you use sour cream instead of cream cheese in cookies? ›

Sour cream replicates cream cheese's taste but isn't quite as caloric, making it a good choice for a lower-calorie substitute. It gives baked goods a texture that's airy and moist, and even adds an extra bit of creaminess to cheesecake. You can substitute an equal amount of sour cream for cream cheese in recipes.

Sugar cookies, like most cookies, can be frozen, but if you are planning to decorate your sugar cookies with frosting, freeze before decorating. As with most cookies, you can freeze sugar cookie dough or freeze baked sugar cookies.

Take plain sugar cookies up a notch with exciting mix-ins like chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, toasted chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or M&M's. Add these after blending your butter and egg into the sugar cookie mix.

Cookie chemistry: We're taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that's soft and chewy all the way through.

Yes, cream cheese can be used as an alternative to sour cream in some recipes. It has a similar creaminess and tangy flavor. However, cream cheese is thicker and has a more pronounced flavor, so you may need to add a little bit of milk to thin it out and balance the flavor. To use cream cheese as a sub...

“Homemade sugar cookies should ideally be consumed within two to three days, but can last up to one week at room temperature if stored properly in an air-tight container in a dry, cool place,” Mok says.

We had far better results when we froze raw slices of the log, then baked those direct from the freezer. But with the drop cookies, we found the difference in freezing methods was negligible. Frozen portions of raw dough baked directly from the freezer and thawed fully cooked cookies were equally delicious.

Tip #4 Freeze Once

I don't have scientific evidence to back up this tip, but in my experience it is best to freeze just once. Refreezing can dry out your cookies. So if I froze the undecorated cookies, I will not also freeze after decorating...it really depends on my schedule and when I have time to bake and decorate.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

What does brown sugar do in 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. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay 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.

Some work better as a spread or in a dip, and others perform best in baked goods. Ten tried-and-true cream cheese swaps are thick strained yogurt, sour cream, Neufchâtel cheese, vegan cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta, cottage cheese, fresh goat cheese, butter, and silken tofu.

Dump all of the sour cream into the colander. Let the whey drain into the bowl underneath. For a firmer cream cheese, you can take the cheesecloth by the corners, tie them into a knot and hang it from a cabinet knob over the bowl. Let the cream cheese drain until it has the desired consistency.

Sour Cream, Crème Fraîche, or Mascarpone

These three ingredients can be used in place of heavy cream with a one-to-one substitution with just a few caveats. Sour cream will add tanginess to your dish, and if you use it for soups or other hot dishes, it's best to add it in at the end to avoid curdling.