Knockoff Swig Sugar Cookies

Knockoff Swig Sugar Cookies - made September 15, 2013 from Vintage Revivals

Normally I would post the actual recipe on my blog, with any modifications I've made and link to the original blog the recipe is from in the recipe title and to the original blog it's from following the date above.  But on Vintage Revivals' site, there's a specific request not to repost her recipe and just to link back to her blog so I am honoring that request.  As with all my blog posts from another site, you can click to the original recipe by clicking on the recipe title above. I just won't be re-posting the recipe on my blog.  Which makes it a little tricky as I did modify her recipe a bit but you'll have to click back and forth between sites to get both the original recipe and my modifications (sorry).

My ingredient modifications

• I added an extra 1/4 cup flour because the dough was too soft, even with 5 1/2 cups flour
• I added 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste because I thought it was unusual for sugar cookies not to have vanilla flavoring (plus I just love vanilla).

My recipe direction modifications
The directions are pretty sparse on the original blog so I'm fleshing them out a little for any novice bakers:

• Cream the butter first until no lumps remain then add the sugars before adding the vegetable oil.  If you just add the first 5 ingredients all at once, I'm afraid of the butter clumping, especially if your butter is cool to start with and also when mixing with oil since it's hard to get those two ingredients to emulsify.  Best to have a butter-sugar mixture first then add in the oil, water and eggs.
• Add the dry ingredients 1 cup of flour at a time then the last half cup.  If your dough is too soft (as mine was), add up to 1/4 cup more flour.  You don't want the dough to be too soft.  It should hold its shape when you form it into golf-ball-sized balls.
• Once you have the dough rolled into balls and press them with the bottom of a glass, freeze the flattened cookies 2-3 hours or overnight before baking. 

I liked these cookies - they were soft and not too sweet.  Plus I like how thick they stayed.  Early in my baking days, I always got easily frustrated when sugar cookies would spread too thin.  Not a problem with these cookies.

Ironically, though, I didn't really care for the frosting.  The sour cream gives it a tang and if the cookies had been sweeter, it would've been great to offset the sweetness.  But because the cookies weren't that sweet, the frosting didn't provide much of a taste contrast.  I think I'd try frosting these with a more traditional vanilla frosting (butter, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla) without the sour cream to make them a little sweeter.