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
This is the absolute best cut-out sugar cookie out there. I came across it last year and loved the flavor and how the cut-outs stay true to form. I even tested it against another supposedly good sugar, but it failed in flavor and being true to form after baking. I am removing all my other sugar cookie recipes. Awesome sugar cookie recipe!
would this recipe still turn out as good if I cut it in 1/2?? I really don’t need 36 sugar cookies!!
yes!
For me, the cookie, pre frosting, was very dry and floury.
Can I just use a hand held mixer?
sure 🙂
Can you store the frosted cookies for up to a week or should I keep the icing chilled until the day of?
you can store the cookies with the frosting for up to 5 days 🙂
These tasted good, but they spread out way to much. I had to trim them when they came out of the oven. Wished they had held their shape better.
They have always held their shape great for me! What type of baking sheet did you use?
Can this recipe be adapted to make Chocolate cutout cookies? All of the chocolate cream cheese cutout cookie recipes have baking powder in them. I do not want any leavening because I want the edges to stay sharp during baking. Thank you.
I absolutely LOVE these cookies, but they tend to cause stomach discomfort for people. I did some research, and it’s caused by the cream cheese. 2hrs is the limit for leaving these cookies out, to avoid bacteria building. Companies that sell cream cheese products use preservatives that prevent this, however, we do not have those or want them. These cookies are so amazing, that you have to give them a try! Just keep them refrigerated in between serving.
Another thing that I love, is to frost them with buttercream, instead of royal icing. The two together are a match made in cookie heaven! ?
So I’m now making this recipe for the fourth time! They are heavenly! Personally I choose to forgo the frosting though, but add sprinkles to the dough. The cookie has a strong enough flavor to hold its own!
I have FINALLY found my go-to sugar cookie recipe! After years of searching for a no-fail recipe, I will now never use any recipe but this one! These are amazing! The texture is wonderfully soft but not too soft – just right. The flavor is like nothing you have ever tasted – if you are a fan of cream cheese and we definitely are! My daughter helped me make these for Christmas and we got rave reviews! My mother put in a request for more because the tray that I brought to her house on Christmas day was completely emptied before she had a chance to try one. These hold their shape beautifully! Chilling the dough is key – we chilled ours overnight. Gone are the days of my sugar cookies spreading out so much that you can no longer identify what shape it was supposed to be! The frosting takes these to the next level – SO GOOD! I let mine sit out for a couple of hours after decorating to allow the frosting to firm up and I had no problems stacking them in air-tight containers. I can’t thank you enough for this game changing recipe! 🙂
I am so glad you like them! They are a really special cookie 🙂