Soft Sugar Cookies

These chewy, soft sugar cookies are the best sweet treat for any cookie lover out there! Bake all at once or make ahead of time, they’re perfect for every occasion!

Top Level Soft Sugar Cookies

Cookies are some of my favorite baked goods to make. They’re incredibly convenient and easy to make. I’ve shared some of my other cookie recipes on this blog, and I have many more to come. But for now, here are my Soft Sugar Cookies!

My secret ingredient for this recipe is cream cheese! You don’t need a whole lot of it but it’s there to add a sour element to enhance the sweetness of sugar cookies. Without it, the cookies feel a little too sickly sweet. The cream cheese will balance it.

Wet ingredients

Cream together the sugar, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and egg. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes.

Soft Sugar Cookie dough

Once the dough is done chilling, preheat your oven to 350 and roll out the dough balls. You’ll get about 18 1.4 ounce balls or a bit larger than a ping pong.

(for the photos for this recipe, I attempted to make larger versions of the cookies. they don’t bake as well or keep as well, so don’t use the photos in this recipe as a reference point for cookie size.)

Press down the cookie dough to help the baking process

It will help the baking process to flatten the cookies a bit on the baking sheet before you bake them. So roll them into balls and slightly pat them down.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes and let cool fully before enjoying! (you may want to check your cookies at 10 minutes just to see)

Finished cookies

Some tips for better baking Soft Sugar Cookies:

Overall, my favorite thing for making cookies is to weigh your dough balls. It seems like its a frivolous extra step but it really ensures that you get the most uniform cookies. It’s not required for most cookie recipes but there are some that really depend on the identical sized cookie balls.

Refrigerate the dough balls before you bake them. It’ll help with rolling the dough and prevent them from becoming too flat while you bake them.

Make sure your egg, vanilla, cream cheese, and butter is fully room temperature when you cream them with the sugar!

Bake the cookies on parchment paper and let them cool before you move them. They’ll be a little puffed as they bake but will sink back down as they cool. Move them to a cooling rack if you have one to speed up the cooling process!

I hope you enjoy!

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Soft Sugar Cookies

These chewy, soft sugar cookies are the best sweet treat for any cookie lover out there! Bake all at once or make ahead of time, they're perfect for every occassion!
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time12 minutes
Chilling Time30 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 18 Cookies
Calories: 150kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 Cup White Sugar
  • ½ Cup Unsalted Butter, softened
  • 2 ounces Cream Cheese, softened about ¼ cup
  • ½ tsp Kosher Salt
  • tsp Vanilla Extract
  • ½ tsp Baking Soda
  • 1 Large Egg
  • 2 Cups All Purpose Flour

Instructions

  • Cream together the butter, sugar, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and egg.
  • In a separate bowl mix together the flour, kosher salt, and baking soda.
  • Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture a little at a time until fully incorporated.
  • Cover and chill dough for at least thirty minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 350 and roll the dough into balls. This recipe will yield 18 cookies that are around 1.4 ounces each. (or between a ping pong and golf ball size)
  • Bake for 12 – 14 minutes and let cool fully before eating!
  • (in the photos in this post I tried to make larger cookies but they aren't as tasty and don't bake consistently so don't worry if your cookies aren't the same size)

Check out some of my other recipes!

Extreme Fudge Brownies

Cocoa-ey, chewy, soft, and a little salty! Extreme Fudge Brownies are the best homemade brownies ever. Enjoy with milk or a scoop of icecream!

Glazed Lemon Pound Cake

Lemon Pound Cake is the best solution for citrus lovers! There’s lemon in every component of this recipe, it’s in the cake and in the glaze. Comes with a mixed berry compote to top the cake! (Starbucks Copycat!)

Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

These Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are soft and delicious. Enhanced with maple syrup and cinnamon, these are sure to be the best oatmeal cookies you’ll make.

Moist Pumpkin Spice Bread

A classic, generations old, old fashioned recipe for pumpkin bread! Super Moist Pumpkin Spice Bread is just as its name says: soft, sweet, and perfectly seasoned!