These Cream Cheese Cut Out Sugar Cookies are my favorite cut out sugar cookie recipe. The cream cheese gives these classic cookies a great flavor and helps keep them soft!
Cut Out Sugar Cookies are my kid’s favorites, I am sure this isn’t exclusive to my house. Sure they like to eat them, but the decoration part is what they love the best…that is until they have iced and sprinkled 3 cookies each and then they’re over it, leaving me with a good 30 cookies to decorate on my own. Yeah, every year.
This year I’m switching up the usual cookie game we play. First I’m making this cream cheese cut out sugar cookies recipe. PLUS I’m making fluffy frosting to spread on the cookies. No piping bags this year, no little metal balls on the cookie that crack out fillings…nope, none of it. Plus, we all know fluffy frosting > royal icing. It’s a no brainer.
This is such a fantastic cut out sugar cookie recipe because it includes the addition of cream cheese. The cream cheese adds delicious flavor to the cookie, and also helps keep them soft. But they totally hold shape when cutting them out with cutters. It might be the perfect recipe!
Besides the cream cheese, another secret to this recipe is the use of just egg yolks…this adds to the richness of the batter!
Once you make the dough and chill it, you can go ahead and roll it out. I like thick cookies, so I roll it to about a 1/2 inch thick.
You can use simple circle cutters…
Or get fancy for the holidays!
Just bake them up until they are lightly golden at the edges and let them cool before icing.
Again, I topped mine with a fluffy and creamy Cream Cheese Frosting, but if you want to get detailed here is the recipe for my royal icing!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 36 large cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
These Cream Cheese Cut Out Sugar Cookies are my favorite cut out sugar cookie recipe. The cream cheese gives these classic cookies a great flavor and helps keep them soft!
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 2 cups butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 5 1/4 cups flour
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 4 ounces butter, room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- In bowl of stand mixer beat cream cheese and butter until creamy, about 2 minutes, scraping sides as necessary.
- Add sugar and beat for an additional 3 minutes. Mixture should be fluffy and pale in color. Turn mixer to medium-low and add in egg yolks, vanilla and salt and mix until combined.
- Finally turn mixer to low and slowly add in flour. Mix just until all flour is incorporated.
- Chill dough for at least 2 hours.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350° and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove dough from fridge and in portions, roll dough to 1/2 inch thick on a floured surface. Using cookie cutters cut dough and place onto prepared baking sheet. Cookies won’t spread too much.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on how large the cookies you are baking are.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
Frosting
- Cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar and turn the mixer up to medium high and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Color with food coloring if desired.
Notes
Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to a week. Or freeze for up to a month.
Store frosting refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 293
- Sugar: 19.7 g
- Sodium: 68.4 mg
- Fat: 16.5 g
- Carbohydrates: 33.9 g
- Protein: 2.9 g
- Cholesterol: 53.8 mg
Keywords: soft sugar cookies recipe, cream cheese cookies recipe, cream cheese cookies, cream cheese sugar cookies, cream cheese frosting recipe, sugar cookie frosting recipe
When you say store frosting refrigerated in airtight container for up to a week – does that mean once the cookies are frosted, they have to be kept in the refrigerator???
(and only UNfrosted cookies can be stored at room temp)
Thank you!
since it is a cream cheese frosting, best practices would be to store the cookies in the fridge. The unfrosted cookies are absolutely fine at room temp!
BEST EVER SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE! I’ve made them every Christmas since 2018. They are super easy to make, although am sure it takes me longer than 10 minutes. The first year I made them for the Albuquerque, New Mexico Police Dept. (Northeast Heights). This year am making them for the St. Clair County Sherriff’s Dept., Michigan (plus several rural township neighbors). The dough is pliable and retains its’ shape. The only thing I change is the thickness of the dough from 1/2″ to 3/8″ when rolling it out. I definitely do my best not to manhandle the dough anymore than needed (to keep them tender) and only let them bake until ‘slightly’ browned at the edges (overbaking them causes dryness). I freeze the cookies before I frost them, and also like to eat them when frozen! P.S. I have Celiac Disease and have made this recipe w/ gluten free flour. I use Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup.
★★★★★
SO glad you enjoyed these!!
I’ve made these cookies many times, a real favorite. But I’m considering freezing them after baking this year. Is the quality comprised after baking and freezing?
I have frozen these cookies many times and they are still just as good!
My absolute favorite! These have been loved by many the last couple years. Thanks for sharing!
Question: can you freeze the dough?
★★★★★
absolutely!!
I found these very easy to make and roll out! They were gobbled up by everyone
★★★★★
this is ok not the best i will say though very time consuming but super good also very hard to make
I wanted to love these cookies but I didn’t. They lacked flavor even though I added a teaspoon of almond extract in accordance with the feedback from someone else. Given the amount of four, I think this recipe would benefit from double the vanilla extract plus a teaspoon of almond extract.
★★
They are good, but I miss the traditional sugar cookie taste. Also, I divided my dough in thirds and gave up after making 2/3 of them. 48 cookies!!! I really don’t want to throw away the rest, how long can the unbaked dough be refrigerated or frozen?
★★★★
This will be my second year making these and I’m so excited to do so. I cut the recipe in half and made half regular and half chocolate. For the chocolate half, I omitted 1/2 cup of flour and replaced it with 1/2 cup of cocoa powder, could have probably done less, but they were really good. We are having a cookie decorating party tomorrow with some friends. They are so good and I can’t wait to make them again.
★★★★★
Delicious!
★★★★★