World's Best Sugar Cookie Recipe (2024)

Our World’s Best Sugar Cookie Recipe is sure to knock your socks off this Christmas! The combination of the fluffy biscuit-like dough with the super sweet glaze on top will leave your mouth watering for more!

These are the best sugar cookies you will ever have. Seriously.

The cookie itself is soft and almost biscuit-like while the glaze icing gives it just the right amount of sweetness. Perfection.

I can say this with humility, of course, because the recipe is not mine! My friend Anne, who is the BEST baker I know, recently gave me this recipe. She made some sugar cookies for a baby shower I hosted a couple months ago. After tasting one of the leftover cookies, Prince Charming said, “This cookie tastes like the essence of childhood. You HAVE to get this recipe.”

I’ll be honest…until now, I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about in regards to sugar cookies. They seemed like A LOT of work to me and not really worth the effort. Let’s just say I stand corrected. I always thought sugar cookies were too crunchy and stiff. But these cookies are pillowy soft! And that begs the question…

How do you keep cookies soft and chewy?

Sour cream is the secret ingredient that keeps these sugar cookies soft and chewy! I know it sounds crazy, but you won’t be sorry after trying this recipe!

Thereare three important things to remember about these sugar cookies:

1. Roll them out super thin. They will puff up during baking.
2. DO NOTover-bake Cook them for 8-10 minutes, no more. Once you pull them out, leave them for bit on the cookie sheet if you think they need a bit more time. If you overcook them, they will be hard and tasteless. You want the cookies to be super soft.
3. Make sure you use the glaze. These sugar cookies are biscuit-like and not all that sweet on their own. Because of this, it’s important that you use a super sweet glaze like the recipe we have shared below. Other frosting recipes might not be sweet enough. The glaze recipe dries hard and shiny, which make for beautiful cookies!

World’s Best Sugar Cookie Recipe (according to Jenae)

1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. sour cream (trust me…you won’t be sorry!)
2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice (I used the bottled kind, that I just bought. That’s “fresh”, right?)
5 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Mix in sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice.
3. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
4. Chill dough (at least 1 hour, we “chilled” overnight)
5. Roll 1/8 thick on a floured surface and cut with cookie cutters. MAKE SURE you roll them out thin enough. They will puff up a little during baking, so they need to be really thin when rolled out.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees.

*I would highly recommend freezing half of the dough as it makesA TON!

Sweet Glaze

Use this glaze in lieu of frosting. You won’t be sorry…the glaze adds the perfect amount of sweetness to the biscuit-like cookies and dries shiny

2 c. powdered sugar
4 tsp. milk
4 tsp. corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla or almond extract(I actually prefer the almond extract in this recipe)

Mix together and spread on cookies. This is a GREAT icing to use with little ones because it smooths out even after its been spread on the cookie (no matter how harsh your little one was spreading it on there).

Here are a few pictures of our cookie-making process…

Such a big helper! It’s times like this I wish I had one ofthese (especially since it is half-off!!!)

There it is! Just yesterday….my bottle of homemade vanilla(once you try this stuff, you’ll never want the store-bought vanilla again)!

What fun is making cookies without licking the beaters afterwards??? I guess getting salmonella wouldn’t be very fun…but surely a teeny-tiny bit won’t hurt, right???

We used a baby spoon to spread the icing. My friend Sarah uses paintbrushes…which is a wonderful idea. All of my paint brushes have been painted with and I didn’t know if it was safe to use a “used” paintbrush to spread the icing.

And this is a little less than HALF the batch-Christmas trees, bells, snowmen, and boy and girl gingerbread babies. Yes, babies. Big Brother is obsessed with Gingerbread Babyby Jan Brett. We read it AT LEAST once a day.

We took a plate of cookies to our local firestation as part of our 12 Days of Christmas Giving.

Checking out the ambulance at the firestation…notice the plate of cookies in the fireman’s hand. :)

Now…go try out this World’s Best Sugar Cookie Recipe. Just be sure to save some cookies for everybody else. ;)

And if you’re looking for another great cookie recipe, you MUST try this recipe for Rolo Cookies. They are my husband’s favorite!

Originally published December 16, 2010