In search for a recipe to replicate the amazing sugar cookies someone brought to work last Christmas. With cream cheese and an extra egg yolk, I thought this might come close, but it doesn't. This recipe follows a list of tips to make the best sugar cookies, some obvious, some a little unusual (like the inclusion of cream of tartar.) Below is the full recipe, but I cut it in half, which produced 11 med large cookies (snowmen, trees, snowflakes), 6 standard (snowflakes), and 2 small (Christmas stars). (I could have cut even more if I'd rolled the dough to "normal" cookie thickness instead of the advised 1/4".) My changes are in italics.
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups granulated sugar
1½ ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
3½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and cream cheese with an electric mixer on high speed for about 5 minutes, until fluffy and the sugar is mostly dissolved. Add the egg, egg yolks, vanilla, and almond extract and mix well. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar into the bowl and fold to incorporate some of the flour, then beat on low speed, just until incorporated. Shape the dough into a flat disc and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or up to 3-4 days.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C). Let the dough sit at room temperature for a few minutes to soften slightly. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the cookie dough with a rolling pin to ¼-inch thick and cut out desired shapes. Gather any excess dough into a ball, chill to firm, then re-roll and cut out more cookies. Place the cookies on a greased baking sheet and chill for at least 20 minutes to ensure they hold their shapes. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges just barely start to turn golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack before decorating with royal icing or frosting.
These cookies weren't bad, per se, but certainly weren't to my taste. They were extraordinarily sweet, so sweet that the browned edges tasted like those lace cookies that spread and bubble with all their caramelizing sugar. Also, even though I cut the cream of tartar in half, it was still detectable, and wasn't pleasant. (Sort of like baking soda.) That definitely needs to be omitted. There was a slight egginess to them, nice in a custard, but not in a cookie. Lastly, all that sugar gave an unusual crispness to the cookies, almost toffee-like. They are sort of a cross between a cookie and a candy. I had intended to decorate these further with frosting, but there's no way I'm putting frosting on candy. (I can't comprehend the person who said they were floury and tough or someone else who said they weren't very sweet. Did I mess up??? I'm sure I would have hesitated before dumping 1½ cups of sugar into the bowl.)
The other disappointment was that they spread substantially, as one might expect from a high-butter-content cookie. These would have to be cut thinly in order to retain their shape at all, certainly not 1/4".
Conclusion: This is not a recipe I'll make again. It was overly sweet, overly crisp (for a sugar cookie), can't be decorated, and didn't have a particularly nice flavor. All in all, they tasted very commercial, probably due to the sugar content. I consider it a fail because it was so far from what I desired.
Recipe: The Best Sugar Cookies via Buzzfeed
Other recipes to try: Betty Crocker; allrecipes; Tastes of Lizzie T
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