Soft sugar cookies are a favorite in our house. Everyone around here loves a big, puffy, soft sugar cookie, and these deliver thanks to a secret ingredient! They are perfect when topped with a delicious frosting and finished off with sprinkles.
Lofthouse Cookie Copy Cat Recipe
These soft sugar cookies are my version of a copycat Lofthouse cookie recipe. Because one of my daughters has nut allergies, Lofthouse cookies have always been a go-to treat when she has to bring a pre-packaged dessert to a school party.
In our district you can’t bring in homemade items, so Lofthouse cookies it is. While they are okay, they never quite fulfill my craving for a good, soft sugar cookie. This sugar cookie recipe on the other hand always hits the spot.
I love that you can change up the frosting color and sprinkles to make these cookies work for any holiday, event or theme.
I worked on this recipe over the summer, while writing The My Little Pony Baking Book.
We loved them so much that I made them a number of times over the summer for different events. That says a lot given the large amount of recipes I was working on!
These chewy sugar cookies aren’t overly sweet. Because they aren’t too sweet, they are so perfect paired with my easy buttercream frosting recipe.
Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients:
Cookies
- Sugar
- Butter
- Eggs
- Sour Cream (secret ingredient alert!)
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- baking powder and soda
- salt
Frosting
- Butter
- Powdered sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Milk or cream
- Food coloring
- Sprinkles for garnish
Directions:
These cookies are very simple to make.
Like most cookies you cream together your wet ingredients, then add in your dry ingredients.
One thing this dough does require is some time to chill, at least an hour, and up to 24. If you skip the chilling the dough will be REALLY sticky and it will spread more than you will want. Trust me, just chill the dough here.
After chilling, simply scoop out your dough, shape into balls, and bake. When that’s done it’s just cooling, frosting, decorating and eating (the best part!)
Decorating:
One thing I like about these soft sugar cookies is that you can completely change the look of them with your frosting and sprinkles.
While they are frosted pink in this post, I’ve made them in almost every color of the rainbow. Frost them with red or green for Christmas, pink or red for Valentine’s Day, orange for Halloween – you get the idea.
You can leave the sprinkles off or go for a fun rainbow of color as I did here. No matter how you top them, you’re going to want to make these delicious and Lofthouse copycat soft sugar cookies.
SOFT SUGAR COOKIES
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 12 tbsp butter softened
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup full fat sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
Frosting
- 12 tbsp butter softened
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp milk or cream
- Food coloring
- Sprinkles for garnish
Instructions
Cookies
- Cream the sugar and butter together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla to butter and mix well to combine.
- In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
- Transfer dough to an airtight container and place in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Note that this dough will be soft and sticky.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Remove cookie dough from refrigerator and use a cookie scoop to scoop a ball of dough that is about the size of a golf ball into your hands and shape into a smooth ball. If dough is still sticky, dust your hands with flour. Once shaped, place the balls of dough onto cookies sheets at least 2” apart. Gently press down and slightly flatten each ball of dough with your hands.
- Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until they puff up and are starting to just slightly brown around edges. Remove from place baking sheet on a wire cooling rack. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for at least ten minutes.
Frosting
- Cream the butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add in vanilla and mix well. If the frosting is stiff, beat in the milk or cream by 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. Add food coloring and mix well until desired color is obtained.
- Frosting can either be piped onto cookies with a piping bag or an offset spatula can be used to frost cookies. Garnish with sprinkles after frosting.
- Note: this frosting does not truly firm up, so it’s best not to stack cookies on top of each other.
Video
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
If soft cookies are your jam, I’d also recommend trying my Lofthouse Sugar Cookies or my Soft and Chewy Snickerdoodles. These snickerdoodles always disappear in a flash when I make them.
My fellow bloggers also have some delicious soft cookie recipes. The Cookie Rookie has some irresistible Loaded Salted Caramel Soft Batch Cookies you’ve got to try.
Beyond Frosting has some Soft and Chewy Oreo Funfetti Cookies that are fun, delicious and colorful!
Don’t miss Will Cook For Smile’s White Chocolate Cranberry Soft And Chewy Crinkle Cookies. They are perfect for your Christmas cookie platters and cookie exchanges.
CLICK TO PIN SOFT SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE!
Tina H. says
Made these tonight and followed everything to the tee! I’m going to decorate them tomorrow but I tasted them and they puffed up perfect and tasted great can’t wait to add some icing! I give you guys props who do it all at the same time!!!! Husband approved and I made them for a family members birthday so will see how they go over!! Sad I can’t post a pic!
Tina H. says
Made these tonight and followed everything to the tee! I’m going to decorate them tomorrow but I tasted them and they puffed up perfect and tasted great can’t wait to add some icing! I give you guys props who do it all at the same time!!!!
Bambi says
Hello! I made these tonight and they came out flat. What did I do wrong?
Christi Johnstone says
Hmm, that’s a good question because this is a really puffy cookie. I would start by double checking all ingredients and making certain that neither the baking powder or baking soda have expired. Next I would double check how you measured your flour, make sure you give it a stir then spoon it into the measuring cup and level off, don’t scoop the flour with the measuring cup to measure. The final thing to check would be oven temp. If you don’t have an inexpensive oven thermometer, I would get one. If an oven is running too hot (and they can run hot intermittently – that’s the sneaky problem to find) that can flatten out cookies. Years ago ours was doing this and it was actually flat cookies that motivated me to get an oven thermometer, and then I found the issue. Hope these tips help!
Deanne says
I used full fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and it turned out great. I
Tia says
What else can I use besides sour cream? I don’t have any on hand! Thanks ☺️
Christi Johnstone says
I’ve only made this with sour cream, so I can’t speak to results, but maybe try full fat sour cream?
Harold Burton says
My husband prefer eating beef so much.This dish looks very delicious, I will make them as your recipe for him, I hope he will happy when eating them
Harold Burton
Angela says
I am looking for a good cookie cutter sugar cookie recipe. Do you think this is the one? I have tons of cookie cutters, but they turned into play dough toys for the kids long ago…
Christi Johnstone says
No, this is not a cut out cookie recipe. You’ll find that one here… Cut Out Cookies.
Kaitlin says
These are fantastic. 100% spot on. I did use my own whipped buttercream recipe for frosting. I scared that I found this recipe, for fear of making them all the time.
Nimet Murugan says
I have made these as the recipe calls, and they were delicious! I was wondering if we can use the dough with cookie cutters.
Mtngrl84 says
Super soft! Gigantically puffy! Taste fabulous absolutely love this recipe thank you so much! Baked at 350° for 14 minutes at 8300 feet