Grandma's Sour Cream Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you add too much sugar to sugar cookies? ›

Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown. Adding too little sugar can affect the taste and texture of cookies. Adding too much can cause them to be brittle. Take your time creaming the sugar and butter together at the beginning.

Almond Extract: For a twist on the traditional sugar cookie flavor, try adding a small amount of almond extract. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and adjust according to your preference. Citrus Zest: Incorporate the zest of citrus fruits like lemon, orange, or lime into the dough. The zest adds a bright and refreshing flavor.

To fix this, you can add more fat to the dough. This can be in the form of butter, shortening, or even olive oil. Just add a little at a time until the dough comes together and is no longer crumbly. You may also need to add more liquid, such as milk or water, to get the right consistency.

When you add sour cream, you add moisture that is surrounded by fat. Both the fat in the butter and the fat in the sour cream help keep water molecules away from protein molecules, resulting in a more tender pie crust.

You'll get cookies that are harder, drier, crumblier, and spread far less.

An excessive amount of butter makes it where the flour is unable to absorb the combined fat, which causes the cookie to spread too widely and the sugar to carbonize more easily because it's surrounded by too buttery a dough.

If the baked cookies taste a bit bland (and if the dough is fairly soft and receptive to additions), add salt and/or spices to the remaining dough before baking. If, on the other hand, they're a bit salty for your taste, try rolling the dough balls in sugar before baking.

Over-working the dough yields a tough cookie, which is not at all what you want. The very best sugar cookies are soft and tender.

“The result is added tenderness with more structure.” You don't need much of the ingredient to notice significant changes in your favorite recipe. Add a teaspoon or two to your dry ingredient mix and it will drastically change the texture. It's also fun to experiment until you get the exact finish you desire.

What makes sugar cookies tough? ›

If you roll them out too thin then they are more likely to over-bake and harden as they cool. No one likes a hard, dry sugar cookies! Don't over-bake them. If you wait to see golden brown along the edges like you would with other types of cookies, they will be overcooked!

The USDA gives a 21 day window for food safety, assuming the sour cream has been continuously refrigerated. Sour cream that has been exposed to temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit for more than one to two hours should be discarded.

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.

Use full-fat sour cream for: baked goods (quick breads, cakes, muffins), creamy sauces, mashed potatoes, vegetable purées, cheesecakes, salad dressings, pasta salads, cold summer soups or dips. 14% cooking sour cream: a product that can take the heat!

If your dish is a little too sweet, try rounding out the sweetness by adding flavors or ingredients that are sour, bitter, or spicy. It may be obvious not to add more sweet ingredients, but you should also stay away from salty ones since they actually bring out the sweetness in food.

If you over sweeten, you have a few different options, according to Curtis. He suggests adding a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. "The acidity helps to balance it," he explains. If you don't have either handy, you can also try yogurt, or you can add a fat like olive oil, the chef says.

Sugar creates texture

Sugar easily binds with water, which accomplishes two main things. 1) It locks in moisture, keeping your baked goods from drying out; and 2) It inhibits the development of gluten which keeps your cookies, cakes and sweet breads softer.

Consuming excess sugar leads to a condition called insulin resistance, which is a precursor to type 2 diabetes, a fatty liver, and cardiovascular disease. Insulin is responsible for the body's absorption of glucose — or sugar — for energy. Those with insulin resistance experience a buildup of glucose in the blood.