Grandma's Sour Cream Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you don t put cream of tartar in sugar cookies? ›

Adding it to cake or cookie batters prevents sugar from banding together and crystallizing, meaning that it results in more of a tender chew—snickerdoodles and sugar cookies wouldn't be the same without cream of tartar. The same effect is why it's added to some frostings and syrups, where it helps keep things smooth.

The very best sugar cookies are soft and tender. → Follow this tip: One of the keys to great sugar cookies is mixing the dry ingredients only until they're just incorporated, and not a second longer. Once the dry ingredients are added, less mixing equals more tender cookies.

So by poking the holes in, the cookie. will ensure that the cookie shape does not spread, which sugar cookies love to do. It also helps it stay nice and flat at the top.

Add different flavors.

Dig around in your pantry or explore the baking aisle and pick out different flavor add-ins that can change up your cookie mix. You could use peppermint, lemon, or almond extract instead of vanilla, dump in plenty of rainbow sprinkles, or even mix in chopped nuts or dried fruit!

Sour cream is one of the fattiest dairy products; the extra fat content (for example, adding sour cream to a cake instead of milk) will make the cake moister and richer, says Wilk. "Fat, in any form (butter, lard, cream, etc.) shortens gluten strands, which essentially leads to the most tender baked goods," she adds.

The Best Substitute for Cream of Tartar

For every 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar in the recipe, use 1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar. As an example, if your cookie recipe calls for 1 teaspoon baking soda, add 2 teaspoons lemon juice instead of the cream of tartar.

Well, it's because soda is the most important ingredient for giving your cookies their texture. If you fail to add a teaspoon of baking soda or however much your recipe needs, the cookies won't have those bubbles inside them to rise up.

Flattening the cookie dough provides more surface area that comes into contact with the ice bath, shortening the time it takes to chill. Then submerge the dough in the ice water and let it chill. After 20 minutes the dough will be completely chilled and ready for baking.

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

Your cookies may be spreading after cooling due to factors like warm butter, overmixing, ingredient ratios, oven temperature, warm baking sheets, or not chilling the dough. Adjusting these factors can help prevent excessive spreading.

How to make Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix taste better? ›

Easy Add-In: After creating the dough according to the sugar cookie mix instructions, Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream to create a tangier, cakier and all-around more flavorful cookie. Flavor Twist: For a punchier twist, swap the water in the sugar cookie mix instructions for rum, bourbon or coffee liqueur.

What are some things I can add to a premade cookie mix to make it taste even better? You can add chocolate chips, nuts, caramel or toffee pieces, chopped up candy bars, M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, pretzel pieces, or chopped up shrimp to cookie mix to make it tastier.

Add brown sugar

Adding it to the pre-made dough will give it more sweetness, a chewier texture, moisture and that homemade flavor you're craving. You can also melt butter with brown sugar and incorporate it into the dough for extra tender, chewier cookies.

Flavors: I love flavoring this cookie dough with 1/2 teaspoon almond extract as listed in the ingredients above. For lighter flavor, use 1/4 teaspoon. Instead of the almond extract, try using 1 teaspoon of maple extract, coconut extract, lemon extract, or peppermint extract.