Sour Cream Cookies

I think I hear you over there. You're saying to yourself "sour cream cookies?". Yes, sour cream cookies. It's true.

This recipe is a family recipe. Growing up, I remember my mom making sour cream cookies quite often. And she'd make them very similar to how I did here - with sprinkles. Everything's better with sprinkles, right? They just look so pretty and more fun that way. My decision to make sour cream cookies this past week was rather happenstance. I was going through some paperwork (we won't even get into how many piles and piles of paperwork I was going through...), and I came across some printed recipes my grandmother had given me. As I was looking through the recipes, the sour cream cookies caught my eye. I knew that I had some leftover sour cream in the fridge. And honestly, I really don't use sour cream for much; most of the time, if a recipe calls for some sour cream, I often don't end up using what's remaining unless I make a point to. Sour cream isn't really a favorite ingredient of mine, so I tend to forget about it. Oops. Anyway, I was thankful to stumble upon this cookie recipe AND have some sour cream with which to make them! So I almost immediately stopped (seriously, I stopped immediately) organizing my paperwork (who really wants to do that anyway??), and I started making these cookies.

Ingredients:

-1 and 1/2 cups sugar

-1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)

-2 eggs (lightly beaten)

-1 cup sour cream

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-2 and 3/4 cups flour

-1/2 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Mix together the first five ingredients (sugar through vanilla) with an electric mixer. Mix together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and then add to the wet ingredients and combine. You may add nuts or baking chips at this point, if you'd like.

Chill the dough for at least one hour in the fridge. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Drop dough by spoonfuls (I probably did two to three teaspoons per scoop) on cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 400 degrees (the cookies really shouldn't brown at all - if anything, they will only be very lightly browned on the very outer edges like you see in some of my pictures). Remove, let sit for a couple minutes on cookie sheet, and then cool completely on rack.

I did not add any mix-ins (chocolate chips or anything) to this batch, but you certainly can if you'd like.

So soft, cakey, and fluffy.

I brought some of these cookies in to work to share with my coworkers, and to give you an idea of the unique flavor and texture of sour cream cookies, a few of their impressions were:

"They're like a cross between a cookie and cake."

"They remind me of sponge cake."

"They taste a little like angel food cake."

"They make me think of Madeleines." (a French sponge cake)

This recipes makes a lot of cookies. It made close to 40 for me!

I agree with the impressions my coworkers had of these cookies. I also like to think of them as a fluffier, cakier than usual sugar cookie ("cakier" is a word, right? :)).

No matter what these cookies remind you of, I'm going to guarantee that you'll find them super yummy. Trust me! Sour cream does belong in cookies. ;)