Tender Crisp Sugar Cookies

  4.1 – 28 reviews  • Sugar Cookie Recipes

For the holidays, these no-roll sugar cookies are fantastic. Children enjoy making cookie balls and dipping them in sprinkles!

Prep Time: 25 mins
Cook Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 35 mins
Servings: 60
Yield: 10 dozen

Ingredients

  1. 1 ½ cups butter
  2. 1 ½ cups shortening
  3. 1 ½ cups white sugar
  4. 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
  5. 4 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  6. 3 eggs
  7. 6 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
  8. 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
  9. 1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
  10. ½ teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Cream butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients, add to creamed mixture; mix to blend.
  2. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Dip in regular or colored sugar or decorator sprinkles. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a water glass.
  3. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 10-12 minutes. *Larger cookies bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 15 minutes.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 173 kcal
Carbohydrate 19 g
Cholesterol 22 mg
Dietary Fiber 0 g
Protein 2 g
Saturated Fat 4 g
Sodium 87 mg
Sugars 8 g
Fat 10 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Dr. Joshua Williams IV
I have been making these sugar cookies for many years now, so far for me it’s the best recipe I have come across. I skip the flattening part of the instructions and leave as is. Bake as a ball, they mound very nice and have gotten many compliments on them.
Robert Nunez
Great cookies we loved them will make again.
Paul Mooney
I tried these for the first time, very easy to make. Since oven temps vary I tried baking at, 10, 12 and 13 minutes, I would say best baking time is 11 to 12 minutes. The flavor was excellent, however the cookie seemed a little dry to me, but hey it was my first attempt. Made some plane and the others with various sprinkles. Can’t say these are my favorite but will certainly try making them again.
Ana Bates
I tried these for the first time, very easy to make. Since oven temps vary I tried baking at, 10, 12 and 13 minutes, I would say best baking time is 11 to 12 minutes. The flavor was excellent, however the cookie seemed a little dry to me, but hey it was my first attempt. Made some plane and the others with various sprinkles. Can’t say these are my favorite but will certainly try making them again.
Daniel Oconnor
Excellent easy recipe, my family loved them. Thank you
Patricia Thompson
very good like the fact that these are Drop cookie as I just love sugar cookies and will make year around drop cookie are much faster and easy with lot less work I have arthritis bad in hands so this was easy for me I also rolled mine in sugar before baked makes them more yummie
Amber Jensen
I love these they’re so fun, and they taste great. Thank you so much for posting.
Mr. Tyler Lee
wonderful recipe , tender with just enough crisp , they didn’t last long!
Erin Edwards
These make a ton of cookies, so be prepared to be baking for a while! I think they are great. I used them to make spiral snowman cookies (you basically roll the dough then roll into a spiral and decorate for snowman) that I plan to finish decorating with a friend and her 3 1/2 yr old daughter. for those, they are a bit crumbly, but as long as they are cold and you roll them well, these cookies work easily enough. They don’t have a ton of flavor, true, but they’re sugar cookies, which are generally decorated with frosting or sugar or whatever, and I think they are perfect for that. They aren’t very sweet at all, so you can go to town wtih decorating, so that’s great! They rise well and bake out so allow for some room on the cookie sheet. They are great for what I wanted. Thanks for the recipe!
Robert Collins
This recipe has the exact same proportions as “No Roll” & almost identical to “Sugar Cookies V”. SCV has a little less flour. Sum it up? If you tried one, you’ve tried them all. Not a bad cookie, but not a great choice for cutouts. I liked “sugar cookies with buttercream frosting” better.
Julia Watkins
This a really great sugar cookie, they are rich and crispy and are much lighter than the rolled sugar cookies.
Travis Fisher
Great recipe, made exactly as suggested. I really hate rolling out cookies, so this recipe was for ME! The delicious taste of sugar cookies without the rolling. 🙂 I made them smaller than usual size, and used red and white frosting. They turned out very nice looking and I think they’ll make a nice (tasty!) addition to my holiday cookie trays without the fuss of rolling and cutting.
Grace Jackson
I was a little disappointed in this recipe, only b/c I am on a mission to find a sugar cookie recipe similar to the ones you can find at the store with the colored icing on top. However, if you like a shortbread/sugar cookie…this is the recipe for you!…It was nice a crisp, just like the shortbread cookies you can buy!…:)
Robert Krause
They are good! I just didn’t find any crispness to them – I want to play around with this recipe to see if the size of the cookie had anything to do with the heftiness! These babies were thicker and heavier than I thought they’d be, even with proper creaming, etc. I did use my larger cookie scoop. –Regardless, they are good and a hit with everyone I’ve shared with. Plain, or even more fantastic with yummy chocolate frosting… Mine looked exactly like the one photo that currently exist for this recipe, just thicker.
Raymond Le
Wow, I couldn’t believe it when I found this recipe. It is almost the exact recipe my mom has made ever since I can remember (her recipe adds 1 tsp more salt). She told me her best friend gave her the recipe 45 years ago. Her recipe even has the same name, Tender Crisp Sugar Cookies. Depending upon how you bake these they turn out differently. I have rolled them out thick with a short cooking time and they turn out very soft and stay soft and are great with icing. I have just used them as a drop cookie, or my mom likes to roll them out thin to make them crispy and then frost or sugar them. My husband likes them when I roll them into balls then press them slightly with a glass and when they are fresh out of the oven I sprinkle them with sugar. I like them with chocolate icing. My crazy son likes them best when I make them with less flour (he calls them sugar cookies made wrong because I accidently left out TWO cups of flour once) they really spread when baking, but turned out chewy and good. This is an all time favorite that can be eaten plain, sugared or iced, dropped, rolled out or rolled into a ball. Love them.
Michael Olson
These cookies were very good for cutting
James Calderon
As I write this I am only this recipe’s 12th reviewer, which I can only guess is because it has an average rating of a mere 3-1/2 stars. I’m hoping to boost that, as this recipe is simply underrated. I disagree with the few reviewers who found these “tasteless” and/or “cake-like” and if they had to be thrown out I respectfully suggest the baker must have done something wrong. There are a few types of sugar cookies – chewy, soft, firm, light, crispy, tender – and the list goes on. These are light as air, tender and crispy, which cream of tartar always seems to contribute. The flavor is subtle, perfect for embellishing with frosting, decorating sugars, chocolate glazes, cherries, rolling in cinnamon-sugar or whatever else you fancy. Just as good plain, too, when you don’t want something overwhelmingly sweet. This was a nice dough to work with, easy to mix up, and I had them in and out of the oven in just minutes. I decorated them for Christmas by rolling them in green and red decorator sugars before flattening them slightly. There is everything to like about this cookie!
Alexis Davis
I made over 100 of these for my husband’s school fundraiser. It was difficult to tell when they were cooked through-the first batch was a little under-done. It took about 17 minutes a batch to get them baked just right. These were not quite as sweet as I hoped they would be, but I’m sure the frosting the students added made up for it.
Kent Mercer
I do cutouts with this recipe. Very light and slightly crisp- everyone loves them. I use butter flavored shortening, though. I think that that adds to the flavor. Grrreat recipe. Thanx!!
Brianna Stafford
I was about to submit this recipe when I realized it was already here! I changed the scaling/serving amount to 20 though and use 1 cup butter and no shortening. These are the cookies my Grandma used to make. They are fabulous! The only difference in my recipe is “chilling for two hours or overnight and flattening with a glass dipped in powdered sugar before baking.” Can’t believe anyone wouldn’t love these cookies! My entire family does!
Angela Morris
I made these cookies at Christmas time.They came out very crisp and had an excellent taste. I cant believe they wouldve gotten any bad reviews. They are similar to a recipe I had years ago and lost from my ex mother in law. I was so thankful to get it again!! These will definitely be made again, especially at Christmas.

 

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