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Sugar cookies are a delightful treat by themselves,
but adding these ingredients to your next

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batch will elevate your sugar cookie game to the next level. It seems like herbs
and sugar cookies are an odd pairing, but trust us, it's worth experimenting with

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There are several ways to go about adding a little bit of variety to your cookies. Most
bakers tend to blend the flavor of these herbs with other ingredients like lemon, cranberry

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or brown butter to help balance the
sharpness and produce a unique flavor

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Take lemon thyme sugar cookies. Making this type of cookie is
a breeze since you're blending your favorite cookie recipe

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with a bit of lemon zest, lemon extract, and fresh thyme. The combination
produces a unique flavor without needing to go too far out of your comfort zone

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Other great herbs to include are sage and rosemary. Both are muted
enough not to overpower your cookies, which can sometimes make them too

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bitter or potent to enjoy. If you don't need stark white
sugar cookies for decorating, using brown butter might be

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worth a try. Brown butter produces a slightly
different flavor in sugar cookies that can be a way

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Welcome change to this traditional treat. Adding
browned butter to your sugar cookie dough is pretty easy

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although it will require a few extra steps in
the beginning to get the butter ready to use

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To prepare brown butter, simply add the butter
you'd normally use in sugar cookies to a warm

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skillet and gently whisk over medium heat. As
the butter cooks, you'll notice foam and a

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pleasing aroma starting to form along with a
beautiful brown hue. At this point, you can

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remove the brown butter from the stovetop
to cool it before using it. From there

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you'll simply follow the rest of your brown butter
sugar cookie recipe, which will often involve

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chilling the dough to help your cookies keep
their shape. Once baked, brown butter sugar

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cookies will render a toasty sweet flavor you'll
likely fall in love with. It isn't traditional

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but it sure is delicious. It's a good-ass sugar cookie. You can add cream
cheese to your sugar cookie recipe in several scrumptious ways. The rich and

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decadent taste of cream cheese pairs beautifully
with the light sweetness of sugar cookies

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It makes for an exciting upgrade worthy of trying
the next time you're in the mood for baking

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To use cream cheese and sugar cookies, you have several options.
The first is to incorporate it into the sugar cookie dough

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We don't often see recipes utilizing cream cheese this
way, but when we do, they usually get stellar reviews

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Another way is to add cream cheese to your iced topping,
or, though messy, you could make a cream cheese filling

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It'll give your sugar cookies a different yet
very delicious spin on the traditional fare

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Note that each of these methods will require
different steps, and it isn't advised that

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you use cream cheese in whatever
sugar cookie recipe you've always used

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Instead try to find a recipe that already incorporates cream cheese in the cookie the way you want to so that your dry ingredient
ratio and fat ratio aren thrown off Be careful when adding this ingredient to your sugar cookies because it may or may not render

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the results you want. Like with so many other
cookie types, people differ in terms of what is

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expected to make up a truly delicious sugar cookie.
Some cookie connoisseurs may find themselves

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feuding over which type, taste, and texture of
sugar cookie is actually best. When it comes to

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adding sour cream to sugar cookie dough, know
that the results will produce something other

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than what is considered traditional. You'll end
up with a cakey and puffy cookie that may be more

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akin to a cookie biscuit than a classic sugar
cookie. Additionally, you may find that adding

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sour cream to cookie dough makes the cookies less
sweet, meaning that adding frosting as an extra

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layer of sweetness is typically ideal. If you're
a person who loves thicker and denser cookies that

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aren't as sweet, then you'll probably enjoy sour
cream sugar cookies. We've seen bakers who hate

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sugar cookies love the sour cream variety because
of the difference in taste and texture they create

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Still, if you're a sugar cookie traditionalist,
this variation may or may not be for you

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You'd be surprised at how well citrus works in
sugar cookies, but it does make sense. The light

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and fluffy nature of sugar cookies lends itself
perfectly to bright and tangy citrus flavors that

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lift the taste of traditional cookies without
being overly potent. Though you could technically

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use any citrus flavor to essence your sugar
cookies, we often find that orange and lemon

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work best. To fully integrate these flavors into
your cookies, add a bit of juice and the zest from

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your favorite citrus. Some recipes also call for
rolling sugar cookie dough in lemon sugar before

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baking to further enhance all those wonderfully
bright citrusy tastes. You can also infuse the

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flavors of your citrus into your icing
for an exciting final finishing touch

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The sugar cookies you speak of, are they real or symbolic? White chocolate is often something
we associate with the holiday season, and indeed, it's great for infusing into winter treats

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The thing is, white chocolate also works as
an amazing upgrade for plain sugar cookies

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Adding the confection gives the cookies a more decadent
flavor that's different from traditional sugar cookies

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Adding white chocolate to sugar cookies can be as easy as throwing in a handful of white chocolate
chips or even incorporating thin shavings of white chocolate into the sugar cookie dough itself

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Moreover, you could use white chocolate frosting for your
cookies to give them a rich taste and an elegant iced touch

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Either way you use it, white chocolate isn't a fussy ingredient that
requires you to alter your traditional sugar cookie dough recipe

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Just toss it in and cook as usual for an elevated flavor. Also, try
throwing in a handful of dried cranberries with your white chocolate once

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You might just end up with an amazing sweet and sour duo your taste buds will crave Ask any cookie lover and they will tell
you definitively that sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies taste nothing alike This is mostly due to certain ingredients

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such as brown sugar and chocolate chip
cookies, that produce a flavor much richer

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than standard sugar cookies. Thus, adding
chocolate chips to your sugar cookies

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will yield a taste that is distinctly
unique from what's considered traditional

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While we will say that it's perfectly fine to toss
chocolate chips into plain old sugar cookie dough

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and bake away, we realized that adding chocolate
chips to a regular recipe might be sugar overload

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And while we want cookies to be sweet,
cloyingly sweet isn't quite what we're going for

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For the recipes we've found using chocolate chips in sugar cookie dough, the amount
of sugar used per cup of flour was less than what's in traditional sugar cookies

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So when it comes to the sugar in your original recipe, you
may need to scale back when adding chocolate chips to the mix

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All in all, this is certainly an eclectic addition to sugar cookies, but we think
it's different enough from chocolate chip cookies to make it worth a mention

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This upgrade definitely has a Christmassy vibe
to it, but peppermint is such a great addition

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to sugar cookies, we think you can savor it any
time of the year. Adding peppermint to sugar

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cookies is easy, but like so many other ideas
on this list, you'll want to be careful about

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how you include it. When using peppermint extract,
you should be careful not to add too much

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If you're not careful, you could render your sugar
cookies too potent and make them unenjoyable to

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eat. Even so, you should be fine adding a smidge
of it to your standard sugar cookie recipe for a

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peppermint flavor that isn't overly robust. If,
on the other hand, you plan to use ingredients

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like crushed peppermint candy to your cookies,
you'll want to follow a recipe that already

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includes peppermint. The sugar in the candy may
make your traditional cookie dough recipe too sweet

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Some of the peppermint sugar cookie recipes
we've found out there sound incredibly enticing

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blending together the likes of crushed
candy canes with cream cheese frosting

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and even a dash of peppermint for an oh-so-exciting first bite. Adding cranberries
to your sugar cookies is an upgrade that might sound a little odd at first

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but it truly is an addition too good to pass up.
Because cranberries are tart, they often meld well

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with sugary-rich and mellow flavors to help
balance everything out. White chocolate works

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well for this purpose, as does cream cheese, so
throwing in a handful of cranberries to sugar

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cookie recipes that call for either of these
ingredients is a smart move. The other great

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thing about adding cranberries to sugar cookies
is that it gives them a slightly festive appeal

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without much effort. You don't have to worry
about whether or not your cranberries are in

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or out of season if you used them dried. And their
deep red hue can work to give your sugar cookies

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a cheerful vibe that makes them perfect for serving during the holidays. Cream of tartar may or may not be something you already have stocked in your kitchen pantry but in case you
unfamiliar with it it time to be introduced Cream of tartar is used for a myriad of purposes When it comes to baking sugar cookies though this is the ultimate ingredient for achieving

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the right texture, taste, and color. One of the ways cream of
tartar benefits sugar cookies is by preventing them from browning

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too much in the oven. This can be helpful, as the white
color of sugar cookies is what often lends them so

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perfectly for decorating. Look how
beautiful and unburnt my cookies turned out

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Besides affecting color, cream of tartar also
improves the texture of the cookies as the

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compound keeps sugar from crystallizing, thus
staving away a hard or crispy cookie and keeping

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it soft. Last but not least, cream of
tartar boosts the flavor of sugar cookies

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It brings about a tangy element that can complement
the sweetness of the cookies quite well, especially

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if you've chosen to essence them with warming spices like cinnamon. All in all,
cream of tartar is a great ingredient to keep in your sugar cookie repertoire

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Don't be surprised if you come across several
sugar cookie recipes that already include it

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Putting pumpkin in sugar cookies sounds like a fabulous idea. The delicate,
sweet, and vanilla backdrop of sugar cookies certainly does seem to lend

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itself to unique, distinct autumnal flavors,
with pumpkin becoming a no-brainer when you

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think about it. There are plenty of recipes out there
that add pumpkin to the ingredient list of sugar cookies

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They're chock full of deliciousness from cinnamon,
vanilla extract, butter, sugar, and of course

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the star of the show, pureed pumpkin. What makes this upgrade even
better is that you don't necessarily have to go through the hassle

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of baking up a fresh pumpkin. You can simply grab a can of pureed
pumpkin off the store shelf and have it on hand whenever you

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need it. This is likely going to be a treat most fitting
for fall, but that shouldn't stop you from making

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these whenever you want. Plus, they're ridiculously easy to
whip up, assuming you get your hands on the right recipe

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Just be sure not to add pumpkin puree to
a previously existing sugar cookie dough

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The pumpkin may change the flavor and texture
and not turn out quite as you had hoped

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Almonds may not sound like a very appealing upgrade to sugar
cookies, but believe us, adding almond extract to your cookies

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along with a few thinly sliced almonds for topping, is a wonderfully easy
way to change the traditional flavor of sugar cookies without overdoing it

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According to several recipes, simply add the almond
extract in much the same way you'd add vanilla extract

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to a cookie recipe. Almond extract can
be added to both the sugar cookie dough

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and the sugar cookie frosting, though it's important to watch your
measurements and recipes closely in order not to use too much

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What you'll be left with is the distinctly sweet flavor
of almond that's different enough to be noticeable

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but not quite so different
that it throws people off