Old-fashioned buttermilk sugar cookies are soft, buttery cookies that hold up to being cut out and frosted! Serve chilled or at room temperature!
You might also like my bakery-style sugar cookies, caramel frosted sugar cookies, or copycat Lofthouse cookies!
The best recipes are often the ones found in old church cookbooks. That's exactly where this one came from! Tried and true recipes passed down from generation to generation.
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Why This Recipe Is a Keeper
- Made from basic ingredients that you probably already have on hand. If you don't have ½ cup of buttermilk, you can make your own using ½ cup milk and 1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice.
- Easy to roll out. The dough is a dream to work with. It's soft yet sturdy and easy to roll out and cut.
- Can be served chilled or at room temperature. If you want to make chilled sugar cookies like Crumbl, pop a few into the refrigerator for an hour or so.
- Buttercream frosting. Buttercream frosting tastes better than royal icing, which is why I use it exclusively for sugar cookies. My frosting recipe sets up enough to stay soft, but the cookies are able to be stored or stacked 2 cookies tall.
- Make a little or make a lot! This recipe can easily be doubled. A single recipe makes 26-28 large 3 ½" cookies.
🥣Ingredients
Cookies
- Butter: salted or unsalted. I always bake with salted butter.
- Sugar: I use white sugar exclusively for sugar cookies.
- Eggs: for richness and texture.
- Vanilla extract: for flavor. You can also use any other extract that you'd like. Almond extract is one of my favorites.
- Buttermilk: You only need ½ cup of buttermilk to make a soft and chewy sugar cookie.
- Flour: all purpose flour works great in this recipe.
- Baking powder, Baking soda, and Salt: for leavening and texture.
Frosting
- Butter
- Powdered Sugar
- Milk: if you have extra buttermilk to use up you can use it in the frosting too! Otherwise, any type of milk will work.
- Vanilla extract
👩🍳How To Make Buttermilk Sugar Cookies
- Cream butter and sugar until fluffy in a stand mixer (or mix using a handheld electric mixer).
- Add eggs and vanilla extract.
- Add buttermilk and mix until smooth.
- Mix in baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add flour and mix until a soft dough forms. Since the dough needs to chill, it will be soft and slightly sticky, but should still form into a nice ball.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, until firm.
- Once chilled, divide the dough in half and roll each section ½" thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters or a round glass. Repeat until all cookie dough has been rolled and cut.
- Place cookie cutouts on ungreased baking sheets.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10-11 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooking rack.
- Beat frosting ingredients together until smooth using an electric mixer or a stand mixer. Frost cookies with buttercream.
🍪Cookie Storage Tips
These cookies are delicious when stored at room temperature. Allow the frosting to set for at least an hour before covering the cookies with plastic to keep them fresh for up to 3 days. You can also store the cookies in an airtight container. Do not stack the cookies higher than two layers.
You can also chill the cookies. Place the tray of cookies in the refrigerator until the frosting sets. Then wrap the cookies individually in plastic wrap to keep them fresh in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Unfrosted or frosted cookies can be stored in the freezer for a few months.
Common Questions
For this recipe? Yes. If a recipe calls for chilling the dough, it's a good idea to always follow that direction and not skip that step. Buttermilk cookie dough is very soft, and allowing it to chill before rolling out is just what it needs to keep its shape during the baking process. If you'd like a fantastic no-chill sugar cookie recipe, try my bakery-style sugar cookies.
While I exclusively bake with salted butter, the choice is up to you! Many experts prefer baking with unsalted butter as it allows them to control the salt content in recipes. The only time I have found that to be necessary is when making cookies that rely heavily on butter as a main ingredient, like shortbread cookies.
Many old-fashioned recipes call for shortening instead of butter or a combination of both. Shortening helps cookies keep their shape and is often used in sugar cookies. While I don't think that is necessary for this recipe, you can use shortening in place of ½ of the butter.
This recipe makes 28 LARGE 3 ½" cookies when rolled out to ½" thick. If you use a smaller cookie cutter or roll the dough out to ¼", you'll easily get 4 dozen cookies per batch. If rolling out to ¼" thick, reduce the baking time to 7-9 minutes.
Buttermilk Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 5 cups all-purpose flour can add an additional ½ cup of flour if necessary
Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 6-8 Tablespoons milk or buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- food coloring optional
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugar until fluffy in a stand mixer (or mix using a handheld electric mixer).
- Add eggs and vanilla extract.
- Add buttermilk and mix until smooth.
- Mix in baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add flour and mix until a soft dough forms. Since the dough needs to chill, it will be soft and slightly sticky, but should still form into a nice ball.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, until firm.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Once chilled, divide the dough in half and roll each section ½" thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Repeat until all cookie dough has been rolled and cut.
- Place cookie cutouts on ungreased baking sheets.
- Bake cookies for 10-11 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooking rack.
- Beat frosting ingredients together until smooth using an electric mixer or a stand mixer. Frost cookies with buttercream.
Brandy says
Soft and buttery! We especially like eating these cookies chilled.