Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipes

Grandma's old fashioned sugar cookie recipes are quick and easy to make, and you can always be sure that the results will be delicious. Everyone loves these homemade cookies. They're the perfect cookie to serve on any occasion.

For special occasions, simply cut them in fancy shapes and decorate with traditional colored sugars, or icing, or top them with a candied cherry.

Whenever you're pressed for time, these cookies can be mixed, rolled out and baked within a few minutes. And, they always turn out delicious. Make a big plateful now. They're great comfort food after a long day.

Mom's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipes

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup thick sour cream
2/3 teaspoon baking soda, add to sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3-1/2 cups flour

Method:

Mix shortening and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla flavoring. Mix well, then add sour cream and blend well.

Then add the remaining ingredients, making sure to mix very well. Refrigerate overnight. Roll out cookie dough on floured board and cut out. Bake at 350°F for 7 to 10 minutes.

I frost them with cake frosting, but you can eat them plain or put what ever you like on top. This recipe I had given to me when I was a child, and I never have any left whenever I make them.

Prize Winning Sugar Cookies

2 cups sugar, 1 cup butter, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1 teaspoon soda, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, pinch of salt, flour to roll.

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, then milk. Add enough flour to roll out, sifting soda, cream of tartar, and salt into the flour. Bake 350°F. Good!

Canadian Maple Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar, 1 cup maple sugar (crushed), 1 cup butter, 2 eggs (well beaten), 2 tablespoons water, 2 teaspoons baking powder, flour to make soft dough. Mix and bake at 350°F.

Delicious Sugar Cookies

1 scant cupful (1/2 pound) butter
1 level cupful (1/2 pound) sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoonful water
1 teaspoonful vanilla extract
1 level teaspoonful baking powder
Enough flour to make a dough and roll out thin on board.

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly together with a wooden spoon. Beat eggs until very light, add to creamed mixture, beat well, add water and extract.

To one-half cupful of sifted flour add baking powder and sift into other ingredients, beat until light, and then add enough flour to make a soft dough, about two level cupfuls.

Turn out onto a floured baking board, knead lightly, roll out very thin, cut out with a cookie cutter and bake in a quick oven (375°F) for ten minutes.

These cookies are as good at six weeks as when baked. One tablespoonful of crushed caraway seeds may be substituted for vanilla extract. Sufficient for fifty cookies. —Katharine Lawrence, Ryzon Baking Book, 1917

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipe

The American Girl, Vol. V, No. 10 (1922)

Girl Scout Cookies

1 cup of butter
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Cream butter and sugar, add well-beaten eggs, then milk, flavoring, flour, and baking powder. Roll thin, cut, and bake in quick oven (400°F). Sprinkle sugar on top. This amount makes six to seven dozen depending on the size you make them.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipes

Dr. Chase's Receipt Book (1891)

Sarah's Sugar Cookies

Sugar, 2/3 cup; butter, 2/3 cup; 1 egg; cream of tartar, 2 teaspoonfuls; soda 1 teaspoonful; hot water, 1/2 cup, to dissolve the soda; flour, sufficient.

Dissolve the soda in the water and put into the creamed sugar and butter; use only enough flour to make as soft a dough as you can roll, dusting freely.

Remarks. —This old fashioned sugar cookie recipe is from Sarah Green of Portageville, N.Y. who indicates it to be nice, if properly made. The following is also hers:

Simple Sugar Cookies

Sugar, 1 cup; butter, 1 cup; sour milk, 1 cup; soda, 1 teaspoonful. Mix soft as possible. Caraway seed is the best seasoning for sugar cookies.

Easy Sugar Cookies

Sugar, 1 cup; butter, 1 cup; 1 egg; essence of lemon; flour to roll and cut out. —Mrs. C. W. Phillips

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipe

The Perry Home Cook Book (1920)

Buttermilk Sugar Cookies

2 eggs; 2 heaping cups sugar; 1-1/2 cups buttermilk; 1 cup either butter or lard; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 heaping teaspoon soda; little nutmeg or vanilla; just enough flour to roll out easily. —Mrs. W. F. Cobbett, Sheridan, Penn.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipe

The White House Cook Book (1913)

Fine Sugar Cookies

One cup of butter, one and a half cups of sugar, one-half cup of sour milk, one level teaspoonful of soda, a teaspoonful of grated nutmeg. Flour enough to roll; make quite soft.

Put a tablespoonful of fine sugar on a plate and dip the tops of each as you cut them out. Place on buttered tins and bake in a quick oven (375°F) a light brown.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipe

Submitted by G. Vigliotti

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate, 6 ounces
Unsalted butter, 2 cups
Granulated sugar, 2 cups
Large eggs, 2
Vanilla, 2 teaspoons
All-purpose, flour 4 cups
Baking powder, 2 teaspoons

Method:

In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter together. Stir in egg and vanilla. Gradually stir in sugar until well blended.

Transfer chocolate mixture to a medium bowl. Gradually mix in flour and baking powder until mixture is smooth. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

On floured surface, roll dough to 1-1/2 inches thick. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and place on non-greased baking pan leaving at least 1 inch between cookies.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350° F. Let cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack before decorating.

Decorate cookies with homemade frosting and color sprinkles.

Historical Sugar Cookie Recipe

Miss Leslie's Seventy-Five Receipts (1827)

Miss Leslie's 1827 Sugar Cookies

Three pounds of Flour, sifted.
One pound of Butter.
A pound and a half of powdered Sugar.
Half a pint of Milk.
Two tablespoonfuls of Brandy.
A small teaspoonful of Pearl ash [cream of tartar], dissolved in warm water.
Four tablespoonfuls of Caraway Seeds.

Cut the butter into the flour. Add the sugar and caraway seeds. Pour in the brandy, and then the milk. Lastly, put in the pearl ash [cream of tartar]. Stir it well with a knife, and mix it thoroughly, till it becomes a lump of dough.

Flour your paste-board, and lay the dough on it. Knead it very well. Divide it into eight or ten pieces, and knead each piece separately. Then put them all together, and knead them very well in one lump.

Cut the dough in half, and roll it out into sheets, about half an inch thick. Beat the sheets of dough very hard, on both sides, with the rolling pin. Cut them out into round cakes with the edge of a tumbler. Butter iron pans, and lay the cakes in them.

Bake them to a very pale brown (325ºF). If done too much, they will lose their taste. Let the oven be hotter at top than at bottom.

These biscuits (cookies), kept in a jar, closely covered from the air, will continue perfectly good for several months.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipes

The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, Second Edition (1890)

Sugar Cookies

One egg, one cup of sugar, half a cup (scant) of butter, half a cup of milk, nutmeg to taste, two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, one of soda.

Make soft dough as can be handled; roll thin, and bake in quick oven (375°F). —Mrs. Ellie A. Hill

Rich Sugar Cookies

One and two-thirds cups sugar, one cup butter, three eggs, two-thirds teaspoonful soda, one small nutmeg, flour to roll. Roll thin, and bake in a quick oven (375°F).

Lemon Sugar Cookies

Two eggs, one cup sugar, two-thirds cup of butter and lard, one teaspoonful cream of tartar, one scant teaspoonful soda, two tablespoonfuls cold water.

Flavor with lemon; flour to roll. Roll thin. Bake in quick oven (375°F). —Mrs. M. A. Everett