These soft and chewy sugar cookies decorated with an easy-to-make frosting are a Christmas cookie staple! This sugar cookie recipe is full of simple ingredients and comes together quickly!

When I was a child, we had very large Christmas celebrations. My Mom was the family baker. For days leading up to the big day, she would be in the kitchen making all sorts of pies and cookies.
My job was to ice and decorate all of those cookies. We lived in upstate New York and had an unheated enclosed front porch. In this porch, we had two picnic tables. That is where I would sit with bowls of colored icing and tons of cookies.
At the beginning of my decorating, I was very creative. Towards the end, I’m sure I just slapped that icing on and called it good.
The fun thing about these sugar cookies is that they are delicious, whether they are expertly decorated or not. 😉

We make these sugar cookies for most holidays. I have a box of cookie cutters that I pull out to cut these out. After using inexpensive (or cheap!) cookie cutters, I invested in comfort grip cookie cutters.
I like to roll the dough out on a Roul’Pat, which is a non-stick silicone mat. You can use less flour, resulting in a softer cookie.
Silpat liners make baking these cookies a breeze!
They are moist and soft. And incredibly yummy!!! Onto the recipe!
Homemade Iced Sugar Cookies

These are the cookies from my youth. Perfect sugar cookies!
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 2 ts baking powder
- 1 scant ts baking soda
- ½ ts salt
- ½ ts nutmeg
- 1 cup soft butter
- 1-1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 ts vanilla
Instructions
- Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy.
- Beat in sour cream and vanilla until smooth.
- Gradually add in flour mixture, beating until well combined.
- Form dough into 4 parts. Refrigerate to chill.
- Heat oven to 375*. Grease cookie sheets lightly (I use Silpat liners, so don't use much flour at all)
- Cut out, place on sheet 2" apart, making sure to put similarly sized cut-outs on each sheet.
- You can bake at this point to decorate. Or you can sprinkle with sugar and place a raisin on top, then bake
- Bake about 10-12 minutes, just until they are done - no real color on top, but brown on the bottom.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 208Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 174mgCarbohydrates: 29gFiber: 1gSugar: 13gProtein: 3g
Need more cookie recipes? Here you go!


Cherry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

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hmmmm….sour cream? Never heard of THAT ingredient in a sugar cookie. I’ll have to give this one a try!
Cindy,
I’ve never made any other recipe…this has been the recipe we’ve used since I was a small child. Course, back then, my Mom did all the baking and I was the decorator. 😉
Let me know what you think of it! 🙂
These sound yummy! Will have to try them this year. I usually use a recipe that has cream cheese. We even like them without frosting so I let my little ones color on them with food markers that way they get to decorate and I have less to clean up!
I hope you do give them a try! It’s the only sugar cookie recipe I use. 🙂
Please come back and let me know how you like them!