Amish people refer to large, soft sugar cookies as “cakes.”
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 12 mins |
| Additional Time: | 3 mins |
| Total Time: | 30 mins |
| Servings: | 30 |
| Yield: | 2 1/2 dozen |
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter flavored shortening
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup white sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
- In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and 2 cups sugar until smooth. Stir in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk until well blended. Place big heaping tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets about 3 inches apart. Sprinkle each cookie with some of the remaining sugar.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until edges begin to turn golden. Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks. When cool, store in an airtight container.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 186 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 27 g |
| Cholesterol | 19 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 97 mg |
| Sugars | 16 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Very good as a sugar cookie. I sometimes add a dollop of apricot filling on top. Has become a family favorite.
This was a fast and easy recipe….the cookies are light and barely sweet (I may use a little more vanilla and sugar next time) I altered my recipe and used butter and decreased the baking soda, cooked for 12 minutes. Good cookie, good for a kids recipe or beginner baker
Perfect. Light and sweet. I did decrease the buttermilk by about 1/6.
As others have said, we could tell there was something missing from this recipe because the batter was so thin, the cookies spread across the pan from edge to edge like pancakes, and broke up when trying to remove them from the pan. They have a good flavor, they’re just not a “sugar cookie”. We’d have to agree that these cookies, at the least, need more flour in the recipe. We wondered if adding corn starch would help…
Too sweet and very cake-like. The Amish cookies I’ve tried were soft and dense.
Recipe has been in my family for over 100 years. Originally made with lard. Beware using butter-it tends to make them flatten out and not have the “cake” texture that they should have.
The real deal. I didn’t feel like digging up my Grandma’s recipe, but this is pretty much a replica. My Grandmother used to make a confectioner’s sugar icing to put on top of these. She would then put on the sprinkles/sugar over that. It adds some sweetness, but these are great already. These are definitely not meant to be super sweet. Leave the cream of tartar in for the same reason that ingredient is in snickerdoodles…it just gives an extra bit of a tangy flavor that jumps out since these aren’t too sweet. Also, the ‘dough’ is more of a batter, so don’t be alarmed when you get to that step. These are supposed to end up light and fluffy like cakes instead of a denser cookie consistency.
Very yummy!!!! I did not add cream of tartar, but I did add 1tsp of nutmeg!!! I also didn’t have buttermilk so I added 1tsp white vinegar to the milk, still yummy!
Excellent sugar cookie, follow recipe as written do not change any am’ts. or ingredients. I put pecan turtles on it when I took it out of oven. Delicious Valentines treat
Tried making this recipe twice the sugar cakes taste nice but always fall flat and thin which shouldn’t be
Best soft sugar cookie I have ever tasted!! I followed the recipe exactly as it was written except I used my Pampered Chef cookie sheet and parchment paper. The dough is soft after it is made, but forms into a somewhat cake like cookie after it is baked. Nice and puffy and not overly sweet…the perfect soft cookie. I also sprinkled colored sugar crystals on top of them before baking. I cooked them for 11 minutes, just before the edges turned brown. This is going to be my new sugar cookie recipe for the holidays and year round.
This is the only baked good that my daughter will eat. We make some every year for Santa Claus. It almost reminds me of a vanilla version of a traditional whoopie pie cake.
Be careful not to grease baking sheets too much and do NOT use cooking spray. It makes the batter ooze out into brown-edged, thinner cookies instead of nice cake-y cookies.I followed another user’s suggestion to use butter instead of butter-flavored Crisco and to reduce 1 T of baking powder to 1 tsp. I reduced the cream of tartar to 1/2 tsp. I also refrigerated the dough for a half-hour or so before baking. The flavor and consistency of these are just what I was looking for. Delicious!
Good, but not what I was looking for.
Just what we’ve been looking for. Tastes great! Only took 8 minutes in my oven so watch carefully. Did not have cream of tartar but didn’t miss it. Whole family enjoyed.
This recipe needs definite tweaking. As others have mentioned, it absolutely NEEDS more FLOUR. There is no way in the world that these cookies will have any kind of thickness whatsoever, or even fully cook, if you do not add more flour. I have made a lot of recipes on this site, and some have turned out no so great, but this is the first time that I ever reviewed one. This recipe has me so ticked off because I wasted so many ingredients. I tried it twice, and the second time i used all brand new ingredients in case the problem was freshness. The good thing that came out of this failure was that I could use it as a starter recipe and tweak it and mark down what I did and have my own recipe. No matter what though, you HAVE TO ADD MORE FLOUR. At least half a cup more to start. If the batter is not thick enough to retain its shape when you plop it on the cookie sheet, then it will not cook up properly. It shouldnt be stiff enough to be able to roll into a ball without your hands getting sticky,, but it should be able to hold its shape. I ended up adding about 3/4-1 cup more flour, 1/4tsp more baking powder. 2.5 tsp more vanilla, 1/4 tsp almond extract. You wont taste almond in the cookies – it just helps bring out the vanilla flavor and hide the flour taste. The reason for adding so much additional vanilla is that as the recipe is written, it barely has any flavor at all. I dont mind subtle or rather bland sugar cookies, but this was bad.
These taste soooo good! Buttery, sweet and the consistency resembled corn muffins . The recipe was easy to make. Next time I will measure my dough, my scoops are inconsistent.
These are the real McCoy. If you follow this recipe as given you can’t fail. My version is only 3 1/2 cups of flour. One cup of salted butter instead of flavored shortening. Only two eggs. Increase vanilla to a tablespoon. Only a teaspoon of baking powder. Omit cream of tartar. Increase salt to a teaspoon. Other ingredients remain the same except I sprinkle with sugar in the raw and bake on parchment paper at 375 F for 7 to 10 minutes. This recipe or mine, you can’t fail if you follow the instructions. It is simple to make your own colored sugar, put 1/2 cup of sugar in the raw in a sandwich bag and add one or two drops of food coloring and shake. Much cheaper then store bought.
made this many times. This is not usual cut out cookies. Butter is more runny, but wait till you bake them we can’t stop eating them. very delicious, soft and puffy. and yes that butter recipe makes a lot of cookies… is that a bad thing 🙂
vanilla wafers cookies
Wow, this is the same recipe that I got many years ago when I hosted a Tupperware Party. The Rep back then always had a recipe or two to share. Made this for my two teenage Daughters and their friends while they sat around the dining room table talking about everything under the sun! These girls are now Grandmothers. This makes fabulous caramel corn and it won’t last long! Thanks so much for posting this recipe, I will make several copies so as not to lose it again! lol