Soft Sugar Cookies (Multi-Colored)

My soft sugar cookies are easy-to-make drop cookies that bake up to make the most tender, delicious sugar cookies. No rolling or cutting is required, and they're one of my favorite cookies for making sugar cookie sandwiches. Make them multi-colored to suit any holiday, event, or occasion.

Try my Jello cookies, dirt cake cookies, sprinkle cookies, and frosted Lucky Charms cookies.

Jump to:

• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪 How To Make Soft Sugar Cookies (Multi-Colored)
• 💭 Angela's Pro Tips & Notes
• 🥡 Storing
• 📖 Recipe Card
• 💬 Reviews

These soft sugar cookies are my go-to recipe for drop sugar cookies. They're also my favorites for using as sugar cookie sandwiches, which I always whip up for Easter (along with my bunny butt cookies and Easter basket cookies).

Of course, you can omit the food coloring and enjoy them as-is or switch up the colors for any other holiday. They're pretty versatile and always a hit with everyone who tries them.

🥘 Ingredients

• Butter - Make sure your butter is at room temperature so it can be easily creamed with other ingredients. Check out my guide to room-temperature butter here.
• Eggs - Eggs will bind all the ingredients together and should also be at room temperature.
• Sugar - White granulated sugar for sweetness.
• Powdered Sugar - Confectioners' sugar (or powdered sugar) will make the cookies sweet and tender.
• Oil - Combining butter and oil yields a moist and fluffy cookie.
• Vanilla - Pure vanilla extract adds flavor.
• Salt - A small amount of salt enhances the flavors and balances the sweetness.
• Baking Soda - Baking soda makes these cookies rise in the oven.
• Cream of Tartar - Cream of tartar is the secret ingredient for making cookies chewy.
• Flour - Regular all-purpose flour is the base of the dough.
• Food Coloring (optional) - If you want a tie-dye effect, combine different food colorings to dye the dough. I used three pastel colors for Easter.
• Frosting (optional) - If making these into sandwich cookies, you'll want some frosting. I used this vanilla buttercream recipe, but you can use storebought or your preferred buttercream frosting recipe.

*Be sure to see the free printable recipe card below for ingredients, exact amounts & instructions with tips!*

🔪 How To Make Soft Sugar Cookies (Multi-Colored)

These sugar cookies are easier to make than your typical variety, as you don't have to roll them out or use cookie cutters. You will need an electric mixer, measuring utensils, a baking sheet, and a cooling rack.

This recipe will yield 60 cookies.

Prepare The Cookie Dough

Step 1: Cream the butter. In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine 1 cup (227 grams) of softened butter and both sugars (1 cup (113 grams) of confectioners and 1 cup (120 grams) of granulated). Beat sugars and butter until light and fluffy.

Step 2: Add wet ingredients. Add 2 eggs and beat into the creamed butter and sugar until creamy. Add 1 cup (237 milliliters) of vegetable oil and 2 teaspoons of vanilla, and combine thoroughly until smooth (it will resemble a very wet batter).

Step 3: Mix dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients (1 teaspoon each of salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar, and 4 cups (480 grams) of flour). Combine until all flour is absorbed. The dough will be very smooth and soft.

Step 4: Add colors (optional). If you want to color your dough, divide it into the desired number of colors. Gently mix the color into each portion of dough.

Step 5: Chill. Refrigerate and chill the dough for at least one hour before baking.

Portion & Bake

Step 6: Portion. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C/Gas Mark 4). Place rounded cookie dough balls on your baking sheet, then press them down slightly by hand or with the floured bottom of a cup.
If using colored dough: Use a spoon to add small portions of each color into one hand, then roll the dough into a ball (combining the colors) approximately 1 - 1¼ inch in size. Tamp the rolled dough ball down slightly into a flattened disk with your fingertips or the bottom of a cup.

Step 7: Bake. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the bottom edges start to get golden-colored. Start checking at 8 minutes to ensure that your cookies do not over-bake.

Step 8: Cool. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Make Cookie Sandwiches (optional)

Step 9: Spread the frosting. Once all of your double sugar cookies are baked, make up a single batch of my vanilla buttercream frosting to use as the filling. The buttercream can be spread onto the baked surface of a cookie using an offset spatula or a butter knife or piped with either an open round tip or an open star tip.

Step 10: Add the second cookie. Press a second cookie, baked side down, onto the buttercream frosting to make sugar cookie sandwiches.

💭 Angela's Pro Tips & Notes

• Don't skip chilling the dough. The time spent in the fridge is crucial. If you skip this step, the butter will be too soft, and your cookies will flatten in the oven.
• Make them festive. Use pastel colors for Easter, red and blue for the 4th of July, orange or purple for Halloween, or red and green for Christmas.
• Experiment with frosting. Make these into cookie sandwiches using vanilla bean buttercream, chocolate buttercream, or cookie dough buttercream.

🥡 Storing

Any leftover cookies can be kept in a sealed container at room temperature for up to one week. Baked cookies can also be frozen for up to three months.

Make Ahead

You can prepare your cookie dough ahead of time and either chill it in the fridge for up to four days or freeze it (already portioned in balls) for up to 3 months. You can bake the dough straight from frozen.

📖 Recipe Card