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A chewy sugar cookie recipe perfected by a professional pastry chef! This recipe makes perfectly sweet sugar cookies with pantry ingredients. They are soft and chewy inside but still delightfully crunchy outside!
Many tests and a lot of sugar went into developing the perfectly sweet chewy sugar cookie that wasn’t too flat, too cakey, or too sweet. For years as a restaurant pastry chef I pushed myself to think of new fun spins on classic desserts like fruit cake cookies or an unexpected twist like my twist on a Classic Pumpkin Pie.
However, recently I have taken a lot of joy in perfecting the simple childhood classic recipes. No twists, no turns, just damn good dessert. These sugar cookies share that ongoing journey with classic yellow cake, fudgy brownies that taste like box mix, and thick chocolate chip cookies.
These cookies make great ice cream sandwiches with my double chocolate caramel ice cream, or use them as the base for these ice cream cookie stacks! They are also a staple at Christmas time.
Table of Contents
Why This is the Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
- Just sweet enough. There is the perfect amount of sugar to encourage spreading, chewiness and also make these cookies sweet enough. No cloyingly sweet sugar cookies just like my thumbprint cookies!
- Crunchy edges & chewy centers. These drop-style sugar cookies spread just enough to have crunchy edges and a chewy centers without being underbaked.
- Easy to make ahead & bake from frozen. These cookies bake perfectly from frozen. It is an easy dough to prepare, roll and freeze for later baking.
Professional Tips for Making Chewy Sugar Cookies
There are 4 main things that make sugar cookies chewy and soft:
- There is a high ratio of sugar to butter. Too much sugar will cause the cookies to spread and be crispy, but the perfect ratio will retain moisture and keep them soft and chewy.
- Under-creaming the butter and the sugar will prevent too much air from being trapped in between the particles, thus creating a thicker, chewier cookie. Beat just until a paste forms and use cold but pliable butter for the best texture.
- The perfect ratio of flour to butter and sugar. Too much flour will make cakey cookies, and too little will cause excessive spreading. For example, snickerdoodles have more flour in proportion to the other ingredients than these cookies, which makes them thicker but still chewy.
- Too much moisture. Adding additional moisture will make the exact same cookie recipe transform from chewy to cakey. For example just adding ½ cup buttermilk or milk to this soft cut-out sugar cookie recipe changes them from flat, no spread and chewy to soft and cakey.
Ingredients Needed
- Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar is obviously here for sweetness, but if you add too much in proportion to the butter and flour, the cookies will spread rather than stay tall and chewy.
- Butter: I use unsalted butter for baking, because you want to control the amount of salt you are adding. The butter should be cool but pliable. You should be able to bend the stick of butter without it breaking or melting into your hands.
- Whole Egg: The egg is here to add fat, moisture and leavening. The fat from the yolk adds richness and helps keep the cookies chewy. Beating in the egg just enough will add a little or a lot of leavening depending on the desired texture. Egg also emulsifies the batter and keep everything texturally perfect.
- Whole Milk: There is just the right amount of milk to pull the dough together but not so much to make the cookies tough.
- Vanilla Extract: Vanilla Extract adds a beautiful flavor to these chewy sugar cookies. You could also add a little almond extract like I do in my moist vanilla cake recipe!
- All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour has just the right amount of gluten to make soft chewy cookies.
- Baking Powder: Double acting baking powder will react instantly when it is mixed with an acid and then again when it is heated. I do not use baking soda in order to keep them thick and chewy!
- Kosher Salt: Kosher salt is lass salty than table salt and a teaspoon weighs less than other finer ground varieties. It heightens the flavor here and will keep your chewy sugar cookies from tasting dull or flat.
Variations & Substitutions
- Funfetti: You can and SHOULD add sprinkles to this recipe. It is excellent with sprinkles. Use rainbow sprinkles or get festive with blue & white for Hannukah or red, white & blue for July 4th! Add up to a ½ cup to the recipe as written.
- Brown Sugar: Why not give brown sugar a try? Doesn’t a brown sugar cookie sound yummy? It’s also one of the important components in my double chocolate chip cookies of all things!
- Alternative milks: You can absolutely use any milk or milk alternative that you have on hand in this recipe. It is such a small amount that you will not taste it. I always bake with whole milk because of the additional fat.
- Add a frosting. Try spreading on cream cheese frosting, cream cheese frosting for cookies, American buttercream colored with food coloring if desired, or even my lemon buttercream frosting!
How to Make Drop Sugar Cookies
Use these instructions to make the perfect drop sugar cookies that are chewy and soft with crispy edges. Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.
Summary of steps:
Step 1: Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Step 2: Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well to combine.
Step 3: Add the milk and vanilla and beat well.
Adding the milk before the flour mixture will limit the amount of gluten created during the mixing process.
Step 4: Reduce mixer to low and add dry ingredients in three additions, waiting until almost all the flour has been incorporated before adding the next.
Step 5: Scoop with a large cookie scoop or roll in to balls about ¼ cup size (45g to be precise). Chill dough before baking. Bonus points for freezing!
Many bloggers say that “bigger is better” or that “more dough leads to chewier cookies,” and I am here to tell you that with the right recipe this is not true. In our bakery we sell 2 different sizes of this exact same cookie. One is only 30g (less than an inch across) and it still bakes perfectly chewy. You just need to watch the bake time!
Step 6: Preheat oven to 325°F convection.
Step: 7: Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven 10-12 minutes until the edges are a nice golden brown, the centers have puffed and the surface looks matte not shiny. Cool completely. You can cool them on a wire rack or on the baking sheet.
Do be careful not to overbake. Perfectly baked cookies are chewy but the same recipe become dry quickly when over baked.
Chef Lindsey’s Recipe Tip
Chewy Sugar cookies are fairly simple in their ingredients so the battle lines are really drawn around the ratio of sugar to butter to flour. Measure carefully, pastry is a science my friends.
Frequently Asked Questions
I initially rolled these in extra sugar but I found that to be just a bit too far! Yes, there can be too much sugar!
My grandmother stored her chewy cookies in a plastic baggie with a slice of bread. The cookies absorb the moisture from the bread and stay soft longer! Alternately store chewy cookies in an airtight container in the freezer, which will keep them soft, chewy and flavorful for up to a month! You can also store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week, but they will gradually lose their chewiness.
Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes straight from frozen! Bake until the edges have begun to brown, the centers are puffed and the outside has begun to crack. The center should look matte rather than shiny.
These cookies ship wonderfully. Package in a decorative tin or just place in a zip-top bag in a mailer box. They keep for 10 days and they stay chewy for almost as long. The larger the cookie, the longer they stay chewy!
Since the butter was softened, these cookies do need to chill at least 2 hours before baking. Otherwise they will spread too much and they will not be chewy. Chilling the dough before baking will create thicker, chewier cookies.
If you tried this recipe and loved it please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes in the comments below. I love hearing from you; your comments make my day!
Chewy Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cups Sugar
- ½ cup Butter softened
- 1 whole egg
- 1 tablespoon whole milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well.
- Add milk and vanilla and beat well.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Reduce mixer to low and add dry ingredients in three additions, waiting until almost all the flour has been incorporated before adding the next.
- Scoop with a large cookie scoop or roll in to balls about ¼ cup size. Chill dough before baking.
- Preheat oven to 325°F convection
- Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven 10-12 minutes until the edges are a nice golden brown, the centers have puffed and the surface looks matte not shiny.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Before You Go!
I hope you enjoyed this professional chef tested recipe. Check out all our 250+ cookie recipes or try one of our professional cake recipes instead.
This recipe did not disappoint. Very, very good! I scaled them to about 45 grams before baking, which was about a ball of 2 tablespoons. However, I froze them first, then had to bake them quite a bit longer, about 18 minutes. I still don’t think that I baked them long enough as they didn’t crackle and were a little underdone in the middle. I plan to repeat without freezing them and making them a little bigger (3 tablespoons size).
Hi Jonette, I hope further testing went well. In a professional setting, I do freeze these before baking and I bake them from frozen. It helps control the shape! They do need to bake a little longer though.
I just made these and they are absolutely delicious! Perfect with a side of hot cocoa. Thank you for sharing ????
Oh these would be perfect with hot cocoa! Happy baking!