Recipe: Sour Cream Cookie Dough

Sour Cream Cookie Dough
Newsgroup posting by Terry Yulick

Here's my mother's recipe for sour cream dough, which can be used to make everything from cookie cutter cookies to pie crusts.

1/2 cup shortening (solid shortening: vegetable shortening, butter, margarine, etc.; oil can also be used, but then the amount of flour needs to be adjusted.)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Cream together the shortening and sugar (an electric mixer is handy here; otherwise the whole procedure can be done by hand).

Add the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla extract.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder (sifting is optional). Add to the wet mixture. At this point, you should have a dough, NOT a batter. If the dough is too wet, add up to 1/2 cup more flour.

Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Roll the dough to about 1/4-inch thickness, cut with cookie cutters, and place on a cookie sheet (my notes don't say whether the sheet should be greased, and I don't remember whether I usually grease the sheet. I'd suggest trying one batch greased and one ungreased -- the worst that could happen is some of the cookies will be slightly burnt on the bottom).

Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with a mixture of cinnnamon and sugar, and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on the cookies as they bake -- they should be lightly browned. In my experience, as you bake several batches of cookies, the later batches tend to need slightly shorter baking times.

Variations: my mother suggests using yogurt instead of sour cream. I've never tried it because I can't stand yogurt and never have it in the house. Instead of vanilla extract, try other extracts such as almond extract, or use liqueurs. I've found that in most recipes calling for vanilla extract one usually gets excellent results by substituting amaretto or any of the whiskey-based liqueurs (Drambuie, Irish Mist, etc.). This substitution makes wonderful toll-house cookies, incidentally. Also, as a further digression, a superb variation on toll-house cookies is to mix the recipe exactly as it appears on the package of Nestle toll-house morsels, but to add a VERY ripe banana to the mixture [throw the banana and the dough into a blender].