Super soft and delicious cookies inspired by a vintage recipe. Although they’re perfect for Christmas, these sour cream cookies are an easy, old-fashioned treat for any time of year.
This is a recipe from McCall’s magazine from the ’80s that I’ve changed just a tiny bit.
You can use the glaze recipe that I’ve included, or you can frost them with your favorite buttercream. They’re delicious either way. 😊
They don’t taste like sour cream, but they are different from a normal sugar cookie. They are less sweet and have a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter salted
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
For the glaze
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- dash vanilla
- colored sprinkles or sparkling sugar optional
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl, set aside
- Beat wet ingredients. Beat butter, sugar, and egg with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the sour cream and vanilla and blend on medium-low until combined.
- Mix and chill dough. Mix in the flour mixture, 1 cup at a time, until just combined. The dough will be very soft. Cover and refrigerate the dough 1 hour.
- Bake. Preheat oven to 375. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper or cooking spray. Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes until the edges are golden brown. If baking two sheets at a time, rotate halfway through the baking time. Let cool on wire rack.
- Glaze. After the cookies have cooled completely, mix the glaze by combining all ingredients. Dip cookies in the glaze and sprinkle with sugar or sprinkles. Let dry and store at room temperature until serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Important ingredients and tools
The key ingredient here is sour cream. It makes the cookies moist and soft. Make sure your sour cream is at room temperature before you start mixing the ingredients.
If you’re out of butter, shortening will work just fine.
Electric Mixer: Helps in beating the butter, sugar, and eggs. A hand mixer is just fine!
Parchment Paper: The dough is sticky.
Wire Rack: You want them to cool without getting too soft.
Katbite 200Pcs 12×16 In Unbleached Parchment Paper for Baking, Precut Parchment Paper Sheets, Heavy Duty Flat Baking Paper, Half Sheet Baking Sheets for Baking Cookies, Cooking, Air Fryer, OvenAmazon Basics Nesting Melamine Mixing Round Bowl with Lid and Non-Slip Base, 5 Sizes, Blue and White Floral, Set of 10, 4 quarts, 3 15/16Nonpareil Sprinkles| Blue Purple Pink Rainbow Non Pareils| Cool Rainbow Nonpareil Sprinkles Mix| Cake Cupcake Cookie Decoration Nonpareils Sprinkles| Ice Cream Candy Birthday Nonpareil Sprinkles, 2oz
Everything you need is pretty basic!
Tips for making soft cookies
Ingredients. Start with room-temperature ingredients! Your eggs, butter, and sour cream should all be at room temp.
Don’t skip chilling! Otherwise, the dough will be impossible to work with and will spread way too much in the oven.
Dropping the dough. The dough is so soft that a spoon works better than a cookie scoop.
Test the glaze. You’ll want to do a test cookie to make sure it’s the right consistency. The glaze should settle into a smooth coating but not drip off the sides too much.
Sprinkles. Make sure you add the sprinkles before the glaze dries.
🥫 Storage instructions
If you have leftover cookies, storing them in an airtight container is best.
You can also freeze them, but be sure to freeze them unglazed and decorate them after you defrost.
📘 Related Recipes
- Molasses Cookies, still number one in my heart.
- When you need a simple sugar cookie, try old-fashioned drop sugar cookies.
- Cranberry Christmas Cookies
- Find more old-fashioned Christmas cookies here.
Very good! I tried this recipe yesterday and was impressed how well they turned out. Our whole family loved them! We will certainly make these again!
The cookies were delicious! Our family really liked them and I highly recommend trying this recipe. We will certainly make these again!
thank you for letting me know katherine! i hope you enjoy them this christmas too 🙂
They are weird in a good way! Not too sweet!