Christmas Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

Tis the season to be baking.... I love the look of decorated sugar cookies and have been practicing this last week. I think I'm starting to improve! I love a soft sugar cookie so I was delighted when this attempt brought the results I was after. They were so soft, moist and held their shape perfectly. I did find that the cookies were perfect with just a little bit extra flour. Maybe a 1/4 cup more, if that? Please note the the Tree Cookies were made with another recipe, I much prefer the recipe that I tried today!





Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
1 cup margarine or butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl sift together the remaining ingredients and stir into the creamed mixture. Chill overnight or until cool. Roll dough out toe 1/4" thick on a floured counter top and cut out with your favourite cookie cutters. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes, until just baked. Cool and ice with your favourite icing. I use one that I found at All Recipes a while back and had tons of reviews.

Glace Icing
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp almond flavouring
1 tbsp white corn syrup
1 tbsp milk
Food colouring

Mix together until smooth, you might have to adjust the consistency by adding more syrup or milk. First I pipe the outline of the cookie, let this dry and then fill with the same icing, only thin it out a little more. Once that's dry, add additional colours. I am by not means a pro, obviously I still have tons to learn but I'm having fun doing it.

Tip for the cookie: I love a cutout cookie that holds it shape, where the sides stay sharp and I've heard that after you've cut out the cookies chill the dough again and than bake. I don't know if that's what did it but these really kept their shape. Well the first batch didn't have the straight sides but after I added a smidgen more of the flour the edges stay perfect!

Tip for the icing: I only found this out today after I had already decorated my snowflake cookies. If you want a white icing you will need to add white food colouring to the icing. You would think since it's white it wouldn't need it but somehow the icing turns almost translucent when dry. So definitely add some white food colouring!

Enjoy!
Tina