Old fashioned sour cream cookies are soft, drop sugar cookies with a nostalgic flavor that instantly takes you back to Grandma's kitchen. The sour cream makes them extra soft and also adds a little tang. They are topped with a smooth layer of frosting and sprinkles to match your theme which just adds to their cute charm.
Old fashioned sour cream cookies are my absolute favorite frosted sugar cookie. When it comes to cookies, I am firmly on Team Chewy, and these are nice and soft. The sour cream adds extra moisture and gives them a soft tender texture. Since they are drop cookies, they are easy to make too. There is no rolling, cutting or shaping involved. Just scoop them with a cookie scoop and drop them right onto the baking sheet. I love making these for special occasions and holidays because they are so easy to customize. They are perfect for Easter, Mother’s Day, the Fourth of July, baby showers and Christmas. Really any occasion where you want a pop of color to match your theme. They are truly a very versatile sugar cookie.
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Ingredients for sour cream cookies
- All-purpose flour
- White sugar
- Sour cream
- Shortening
- Egg
- Baking soda
- Baking powder
- Vanilla (or almond) extract
- Salt
See recipe card for quantities.
Ingredients for frosting
- Milk
- Salted butter
- Powdered sugar
- Almond extract
- Sprinkles (optional)
- Food coloring (optional)
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions for baking the cookies
Step 1: With a small cookie scoop (or a tablespoon), drop the cookies on a cookie sheet. About 20 cookies on a cookie sheet works great. They don't have to be perfect because they will be frosted. Then bake at 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes.
Step 2: The cookies are done when you can see that the bottoms have browned and the tops are just barely starting to brown.
Substitutions
- Extract - you can use vanilla or almond extract or even another kind of extract in the sour cream cookies. My other sugar cookie recipe Colored Cookie Dough Sugar Cookies uses both almond and vanilla extract. Vanilla is absolutely amazing, but sometimes life gets a little too vanilla. Try something new! For the frosting, I recommend almond extract or clear vanilla if you're using food coloring.
Variations
I like to vary the frosting and sprinkles to match my theme. I rarely ever use food coloring. But, these cookies and my Colored Cookie Dough Sugar Cookies are the exceptions. And, of course, you could still use a natural food coloring. But, if you are going to use artificial food coloring, I recommend using a gel food coloring. I used Wilton's icing color Pink for the pink frosted cookies in this post. The white frosted cookies need no coloring, just make sure to use almond extract or clear vanilla extract in the frosting. Regular vanilla will also work, but it can give the frosting a slight color tint.
For the green frosting color, I used Wilton's icing color in Leaf Green.
Equipment
A stand or hand mixer is helpful for the sour cream cookies, and a small sauce pan is best for the frosting.
Storage
Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5-7 days. Or up to 10 days in the refrigerator.
Next Level Tips
- Don't be afraid of the occasional use of vegetable shortening. It's vegan and it helps keep cookies moist and hold their shape. I definitely won't claim it's healthy. But, then again, most cookies aren't healthy anyway. These sour cream drop sugar cookies are great for special occasions when you need a colored treat that will match the theme of your event or holiday.
- The frosting is a cooked frosting that hardens quickly, so I set up my frosting area by the stove in case I need to reheat the frosting. Cooked frosting might sound a little odd if you've never tried it, but it's so worth the extra effort. Regular buttercream frosting is too soft for cookies. But this cooked frosting hardens enough so that you can easily stack the cookies, yet it is still soft when you bite into it.
- I set up a cooling rack inside of a baking sheet for frosting the cookies so that I can catch any wayward sprinkles.
- This recipe can easily be doubled if you are having a large party or are making a lot of holiday cookies.
FAQ
Sour cream cookies were very popular in the U.S. in the mid 20th century (okay, that alone makes them sound really old). And many grandmas from that era have a version of a sour cream cookie. Sour cream was (and is still) a great way to make moist cookies. Also, most of the time when you see shortening in a cookie recipe, it's almost always an old fashioned recipe.
Yes, you can make the dough the day before. This sour cream cookie dough is a very soft dough that doesn't get rock hard in the refrigerator. You can take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator and start working with it right away, even if it's been in the refrigerator overnight.
I recommend using full fat sour cream in baking. However, I have made these cookies with light sour cream, and they are still very good.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Old Fashioned Sour Cream Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Stand or hand mixer
Ingredients
Cookie ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup vegetable shortening
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon almond (or vanilla) extract
- 1 egg
- ½ cup sour cream
Frosting Ingredients
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 tablespoon salted butter
- 1 teaspoon almond (or vanilla) extract
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- food coloring optional
Instructions
Making the cookies
- Add the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to a small bowl. Stir well and set aside.
- Add the shortening to a mixing bowl and mix on medium until no lumps remain.
- Slowly add the white sugar to the mixing bowl and mix on medium until the shortening and sugar are creamed.
- Add the extract and the egg to the mixing bowl and mix on medium until the egg is incorporated.
- Alternate adding the flour mixture and the sour cream to the mixing bowl and mix on medium until fully incorporated.
- Chill for a minimum of two hours up to overnight. The dough is very soft and sticky. Chilling also makes the dough easier to work with.
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat.
- Use the smallest, one tablespoon cookie scoop and drop the dough on to the lined baking sheet. 20 cookies evenly spaced per baking sheet is perfect. A cookie scoop is great for making uniform sized cookies, but you can also drop one tablespoon of dough from the tablespoon itself as well.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes. Check at 11 minutes. The bottoms will be golden brown but the tops will be just staring to lightly brown.
- Allow the cookies to fully cool before frosting.
Making the frosting
- Melt the milk and salted butter in a small saucepan over medium low heat. Once the butter has melted, add in any extract and food coloring and stir. Stir until the food coloring has completely dissolved and incorporated.
- Turn the heat to low. Add the powdered sugar about one cup at a time and stir until melted. [The frosting can be made thicker by adding more powdered sugar. Add only ¼ cup more powdered sugar at a time and then stir. The frosting thickens quickly. If you made it too thick and want a thinner frosting, you can add more milk but only add one tablespoon of additional milk at a time.]
- Once the frosting has melted and is spreadable, turn the heat off. You can remove the pan from the stove, but leave the frosting in the saucepan.
- Add the frosting to cookies with an icing spatula, regular spatula, knife or spoon. As you go, you'll want to stir the frosting in the saucepan frequently to keep it from hardening. If the frosting in the saucepan hardens too much, place it back on the stove on low until the frosting is spreadable again.
- The frosting hardens on the cookies very quickly. If using sprinkles, it's best to add the sprinkles to each cookie as each cookie is frosted.
- Once the frosting has fully hardened, the cookies may be served immediately or stacked and placed in an airtight container.
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