Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (2024)

Today’s post is all about the BEST SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE ever…but trust me that you need THE BEST SUGAR COOKIE FROSTING RECIPE too…I shared that recipe HERE!!

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When I was a little girl, I thought that EVERYONE’S grandma made the BEST cookies. But as I got older, I realized that was not in fact true. NOT ALL COOKIES ARE CREATED EQUAL. When I want a soft delicious frosted sugar cookie…only my Grandma June’s sugar cookie recipe will do. She used to make us GIANT heart shaped sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day, and NO OTHER Valentine cookie will ever taste as sweet. Grandma’s sugar cookies are perfect for cutting and frosting, stay soft for days, and don’t take a bunch of extra steps or fancy ingredients. It was so fun to drag out my old stained up copy of Grandma June’s sugar cookie recipe and share the fun of baking with my own kiddos this week. Soooo many memories on one little 3X5 card.

Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (1)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (2)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (3)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (4)

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Funny story. When I was in high school, my best friend and I decided to make cookies for all of our friends for Christmas. Sooooo with grandma’s recipe, a box of cookie cutters, and a dream, we set our plan in motion one day while babysitting…because of course the best time for two teens to bake Christmas cookies is when they are unsupervised, in someone else’s house, AND in charge of small children. We decided that we needed A LOT of cookies, so of course we tripled the recipe (warning…do not triple this recipe because it already makes a TON of cookies). We had NO IDEA what we were actually doing, but we knew we wanted to REALLY impress our friends with some beautiful cookies. Everything started off pretty fun for about an hour or so. We cut out reindeer and snowmen and tried to make the perfect cookies. Then as the hours rolled by and we were STILLLLLL cutting out cookies, things got a bit sloppier. Legless Santas were no longer rejected, angels without wings passed the bar, and eventually circles even became an acceptable Christmas cookie shape. Standards REALLY started slipping. Then as it started to get later and it was time to frost the cookies (that covered EVERY SQUARE INCH of the borrowed kitchen), we really didn’t have much left to give. I remember trying to make pretty frosting colors, but ending up with brown, light brown, gray, and grayish/orange. We didn’t even CARE anymore. We frosted, and sprinkled, and frosted and sprinkled. We had gray snowmen, brown stars, and orange Christmas trees. AND THEN….we stumbled upon another problem. HOW WERE WE GOING TO GET HUNDREDS OF COOKIES TO SCHOOL??? The next day we rolled up to school with cardboard boxes LOADED with the ugliest Christmas cookies you have ever seen. We LITERALLY toted boxes filled with cookies around all day (because of course they wouldn’t fit into our locker) and passed out ugly broken poop colored Christmas cookies to anyone and EVERYONE we saw. I remember kids I barely knew coming up to me in the hallway…”HEY…ARE YOU THE COOKIE GIRL?? I HEAR YOU GOT A BOX OF COOKIES??” So I was basically a cookie dealer for a day…NBD. Nothing like one of Grandma June’s cookies to really bring people together for the holidays…haha.

Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (5)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (6)

You can find the BEST frosting recipe HERE...TRUST ME…it is really the best!! You can find my favorite Almond Joy cookie recipe HERE and if you want to try some simple fall recipes, try HERE and HERE. ORRRR if you want new recipes, organizing tips, and cleaning hacks sent straight to your email address, sign up for my newsletter below Happy Baking!!!–Jessica

Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (8)

Grandma June’s Sugar Cookies

The perfect sugar cookie for rolling, cutting, and frosting.

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups lard/butter (softened)/or shortening My grandma used lard, but I just use salted butter
  • 4 tsp. cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 7 cups flour

Instructions

  • Mix together softened butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and milk. After creamy, add in cream of tartar, salt, baking soda. Add flour 1-2 cups at a time and slowly mix together.

  • Flour surface heavily. Lay out 1/6th or so of the dough on floured surface. Sprinkle liberally with flour and roll out dough. You may need to continue to sprinkle flour as you roll out dough to keep it from sticking. I also like to coat the rolling pin with flour.

  • Cut out cookies with cookie cutters.

  • Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cook until the edges JUST begin to brown.

  • Let cool completely before frosting.

  • You can find my favorite frosting recipe HERE

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Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (9)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (10)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (11)
Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (12)

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Grandma June's Sugar Cookie Recipe - From Orchard Slope (2024)

FAQs

How to improve sugar cookie mix? ›

Easy Add-In: After creating the dough according to the sugar cookie mix instructions, Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream to create a tangier, cakier and all-around more flavorful cookie. Flavor Twist: For a punchier twist, swap the water in the sugar cookie mix instructions for rum, bourbon or coffee liqueur.

How do you beat cookie dough? ›

Realize that most recipes combine the flour and other dry ingredients before adding them to the butter mixture. Raisins, chocolate chips, other "add ins" and, sometimes oats, are added last. Once dry ingredients have been added, don't beat vigorously or overmix. Overmixing can result in tough cookies.

What can I add to cookie mix to make it better? ›

Add brown sugar

Adding it to the pre-made dough will give it more sweetness, a chewier texture, moisture and that homemade flavor you're craving. You can also melt butter with brown sugar and incorporate it into the dough for extra tender, chewier cookies.

What to add to store-bought sugar cookie dough? ›

Take plain sugar cookies up a notch with exciting mix-ins like chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, toasted chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or M&M's. Add these after blending your butter and egg into the sugar cookie mix. This is our favorite hack for holiday Pillsbury cookie dough.

Can you over mix sugar cookies? ›

Over-working the dough yields a tough cookie, which is not at all what you want. The very best sugar cookies are soft and tender. → Follow this tip: One of the keys to great sugar cookies is mixing the dry ingredients only until they're just incorporated, and not a second longer.

What happens if you add too much sugar to sugar cookies? ›

Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown. Adding too little sugar can affect the taste and texture of cookies. Adding too much can cause them to be brittle. Take your time creaming the sugar and butter together at the beginning.

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