Baking Challenge - Week 23 - Copycat - Faux Lofthouse Sugar Cookies

My apologies for the sub-par picture, it's the only one I have.  I made these right before we went away for the weekend, and getting the blog post up properly didn't happen, with all the packing and cleaning and getting out of work late on Friday.

But you can see everything I wanted to discuss in this one picture, at least.  In the introduction thread for the week's theme, someone posted this recipe and I knew I had to do it.  The secret ingredient compared to a more standard sugar cookie seems to be sour cream, which I had, though only enough for a half batch--but that's fine, since the full recipe makes 5 1/2 dozen!  My half batch got me 3 dozen easily.

However, when I read through the recipe, the baking time and temperature seemed suspect.  I've never seen a sugar cookie of any sort baked at 425 F, especially trying to imitate the soft, pale Lofthouse cookies.  So I baked my first batch at 400 F instead, for 7 minutes, and those are the ones on the upper left--quite golden.  I dialed back to 375 F (which is the same temperature as my family's secret sugar cookie recipe, so I was fine with that) and reduced the time to 6 1/2 minutes, just to be safe...and those came out perfect.

The frosting seemed just right, and of course you have to douse them in sprinkles.  I found multicolored flower sprinkles, so I went with green frosting for a garden theme.

I will definitely be making these again.