Perfect Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies.

I’ve been flying through sticks of butter testing new cookie recipes for you (a tough job, but someone needs to keep those cookie trays fresh!). Before I share them though, I wanted to kick off cookies’ biggest time of year with a treasured, classic recipe that I bake every year, perfect Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies. Soft, tender, and surprisingly easy to make, these are THE ideal cutout cookie, for the holidays…or anytime you need a soft, chewy, and utterly perfect cut out cookie. 

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These melt in your mouth cream cheese sugar cookies have been my go-to roll out cookie dough since well before I was tall enough to preheat the oven. I first shared the recipe a few years ago, and they’ve become many of your favorite sugar cookie recipes too.

These chewy cream cheese sugar cookies are sturdy enough to pick up with your fingers or mail in a care package, but they remain magically soft up to a week after baking. 
Not that they’ve ever lasted a full week around here, BUT within the event that you simply happen to possess some hidden away and are rationing them out, know you’ll be ready to enjoy them over the course of every week or more (longer if you freeze).

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Unlike many other roll out cookie dough recipes I’ve tried, this cheese cookie dough is straightforward and forgiving, such a lot in order that little ones can easily help to form and decorate them. My four-year-old niece and that i baked a batch of those sugar cookies together last year, and that i can’t wait to form them together with her again.

Even if you always bypass the sugar cookies in favor of other options on the cookie tray, i'm begging you to offer these cheese sugar cookies a try. they're exceptional.   

Making Perfect Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies   

When you take a bite of those cookies, what you’ll taste is that the most pleasing, buttery, bewitching, and un-boring cookie you’ve ever had. While they don’t taste like cheese , cheese is that the secret ingredient that creates this cookie dough very easy to handle. It tenderizes the cookies and adds a subtle tang that balances the sweetness of the sugar and frosting.   

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The Ingredients  

• Butter. For melt in your mouth cream cheese sugar cookies!
• If you want to make cream cheese cookies with no butter, you could try using shortening instead (I have not tried this swap, so you’d be experimenting).
• Sugar. You simply can’t have a good-quality cut-out cookie without it. These will be the best sugar cookie of your life and well worth it.
• Egg. Binds all the ingredients together for perfect texture.
• Cream Cheese. What can you do with cream cheese? Well, making these cookies is definitely my first choice!
• I made reduced-fat Philadelphia cream cheese sugar cookies, but you can also use full-fat cream cheese if you’d prefer.
• Vanilla + Almond Extract. Adds delicious, complex flavor to the cookies. Don’t skimp and ensure you use pure (not imitation) extracts.
• Lemon Zest. My secret ingredient. You’ll love the addition!
• Flour. All-purpose flour works best here.  

Perfect Frosting (for a Perfect Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie)    

The other half these chewy cheese cookies is that the frosting. I consider it a criminal offense against cut-out-cookie kind to require a wonderfully soft cookie and deck it with a frosting that hardens into a brittle sheet, which is why i really like this particular frosting recipe such a lot .
In all flavor and texture categories, this frosting recipe is ideal but—let’s address the reindeer within the room now—it contains some syrup . I realize that syrup may be a divisive ingredient, but I haven’t found an adequate substitute for it during this recipe yet.
Maple syrup is just too runny. Honey creates a pleasant shine, but the frosting doesn’t set well and therefore the honey throws off the flavour . Can we each comply with eat a frosted cheese cookie , ignore the you-know-what, and say we do that once a year?   

• Frosting Ingredients. A combination of powdered sugar, milk, corn syrup, and almond extract create the most fluffy and dreamy frosting. It’s glossy, sets up beautifully, and remains pleasantly soft beneath its shiny exterior.
• Decorations! Sprinkles, candy, food coloring, or whatever your heart desires.

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The Directions

1.Cream the butter and sugar during a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat until combined. Then, add the remaining wet ingredients.

2.Whisk the dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer, and blend until dough is made . it'll be soft and taste delicious.

3.Divide the dough into quarters. Roll each quarter to a 1/4-inch thickness in between two sheets of parchment paper. Transfer to the refrigerator to relax . Repeat with the remaining dough. (Directions to form dough ahead are below.)

4.When you’re able to bake, line your baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, and take away one among the rolled dough quarters.

5.Remove the highest layer of parchment paper, then cut the cookies as desired. Transfer to the baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough.

6.Bake the cheese sugar cookies for 9-11 minutes at 350 degrees F, until pale golden at the sides . Let cool.

7.To make the frosting: Stir together the ingredients. Pour in additional milk as required to succeed in your required consistency. For colored frosting, add a couple of drops of coloring . Frost and decorate the cookies. ENJOY!   

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Tips for The Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

1.Chill Out. Keeping roll-out cookie dough cold is critical for straightforward handling. If there's any portion of the dough you aren’t working with immediately, keep it within the refrigerator until you're able to roll and cut. If at any point the dough becomes too sticky to handle, simply pop it back to the refrigerator and sip some cocoa (2 Ingredient Homemade cocoa or this Healthy cocoa are excellent options), and during a jiffy , it'll be good to travel again.

2.Lay Flat. Why is it that we shape cut-out cookie dough (and pie shell for that matter) into an enormous ball before chilling it, then attend all the difficulty to roll it flat again afterwards when it’s cold and inflexible? If you'll be using the cookie dough within a couple of hours, rather than patting it into a ball to relax it, roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper and place it within the refrigerator in its rolled-out state. Then, once the dough has chilled, there’s no got to re-roll. Simply place it on your counter in its nicely flattened shape, remove the highest sheet of parchment, and cut away.  

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How to Store and Freeze Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1.Do You need to Refrigerate Cookies with cheese in Them? No, you are doing not need to refrigerate cheese cookies. In fact, i like to recommend storing them out of the refrigerator.

2.To Store. Storing your cookies in an airtight container at temperature is best. Separate layers of frosted cookies with waxed paper or parchment paper.

3.How Long Will Sugar Cookies Stay Fresh? Once the cookies are baked, they're going to stay delightfully soft for up to five days and still taste great even after every week .

4.To Freeze Unbaked. Unbaked, unshaped cookie dough are often frozen for up to three months. Let thaw overnight within the refrigerator, then roll, shape, and bake as directed.

5.To Freeze Baked. Baked cookies are often frozen for up to 1 month, frosted or unfrosted. Let the cookies cool to temperature , arrange them during a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet, then place the baking sheet within the freezer until the cookies harden. Transfer the cookies to a ziptop bag and place the bag in your freezer. When able to eat, remove as many or as few cookies from the bag as you wish . Place in an airtight container and let thaw overnight within the refrigerator or at temperature .