Simple puffy, soft & chewy sugar cookies.

Sour cream or greek yogurt:
I sometimes I crave sugar cookies that are more substantial– like puffy, soft, and almost scone like. Adding sour cream or greek yogurt introduces an acidic element to the mix which will react with the baking soda creating extra leavening and height. It also add moisture to the cookies, leaving the center soft while the edges becomes chewy.

Baking soda * baking powder:
According to Live, Love & Sugar, the secret to chewier sugar cookies is to have a higher ratio of baking soda. Baking powder gives more of a cake like fluff while bakings soda gives more of chew. I have always known that the type of sugar can affect the texture: for example brown sugar contributes to chewier cookies than white, but this information about commercial leavening agents is news to me! Since I want to make traditional looking white sugar cookies, I opted for cane sugar, which has more flavor than granulated, and went with baking soda to achieve that chew. Baking soda will react with sour cream for that “puff” so it will compensate for the missing baking powder.

Looking for more cookie recipes? Check these out:

• Chewy Black Sesame Sugar Cookies
• Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Earl Grey Tea Biscuits
• Almond Cookies

Print Recipe

Soft & Chewy Sugar Cookies

Puffy sugar cookies that are soft on the insides with a nice textural crunch on the outside.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time10 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cookies, pastry

Servings: 6 cookies

Ingredients

• 50 g unsalted butter room temperature
• 60 g cane sugar
• 12 g egg about 1/2 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp sour cream or greek yogurt
• 90 g all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch salt
• coarse sugar for rolling cookies

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
• Cream together butter and sugar and then egg and beat until light and fluffy. Mix in sour cream and vanilla extract.
• Mix together flour, baking soda and salt and fold into the butter mixture. Using a spoon, take a scoop the batter and shape into balls, about 6. Roll it in coarse sugar and place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the batter, leaving about 4" gap in between each cookie ball.
• Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges begin to look golden. Remove and let cool before transfering to a cooling rack. Enjoy!

Notes

*sour cream or greek yogurt: add sour cream or greek yogurt for fluffier softer, almost scone like cookies. 

*baking soda: when using sour cream, it introduces an acidic element to the mix which causes the baking soda to be even more reactive. The cookie would call for 1/4 tsp baking powder but to balance that out the chemistry, I omitted this.

Recipe adapted from Live, Love & Sugar.