Can’t you just taste it? The soft pillowy sweetness, the crumble, the thick slather of perfect icing as you sink your teeth into everyone’s favorite – Lofthouse cookies. In all the cookies I’ve every tried, none are quite like this special sugar cookie. After much testing and tweaking, I am confident in saying I’ve created a lofthouse cookie recipe with exactly the taste and texture of the real thing.
There are several deviations in this recipe from a traditional sugar cookie – and those tweaks are what make the soft and airy texture that is so distinct in Lofthouse cookies.
Lofthouse Cookies Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar – this creates a very tender cookie
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil – the oil adds moisture and changes the flavor to a lighter cookie
- 1 large egg
- 3 cups cake flour – the cake flour makes a super fluffy, almost cake like cookie
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring – this helps to keep that light, near white color in the dough
Mixing the Dough:
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla flavoring. Beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cream of tartar.
- Beat into the butter mixture. The dough will be very soft and sticky, almost like cake batter.
- Divide the dough into two sections. Form each section into a disc shape by wrapping in plastic wrap and gently flattening.
- Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit.
- After the dough is chilled, it will have just a bit more structure to shape into the cookies. You can scoop balls with a cookie scoop and flatten them with a spatula, but for an authentic Lofthouse cookie look, I prefer to roll the dough and cut out perfect circles with a cookie cutter.
- Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper to at least 1/2” thick. You can roll it a bit thinner, but a thick cookie will have the best fluff. Use cornstarch to prevent sticking if needed.
- Cut dough into 3 1/2″ round circles and gently transfer to baking sheet. See below for my best trick on getting the soft dough circles intact to the baking sheet.
- Bake for 8-9 minutes. Cookies should be matte with very little browning visible on the bottoms.
- Allow cookies to rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Cool before frosting.
Cut-out Cookie Trick:
Ok, here’s a great trick to keep your perfect cutouts intact. Sometimes with a soft dough – and even with a firmer dough – you cut out the perfect shape, but then it gets warped when you scoop it off your cutting board onto the baking sheet.
Instead, cut your parchment paper to perfectly fit on your cookie sheet. Roll the dough out directly on the parchment paper. Cut out your cookies with enough space between them to puff during baking. Remove the excess dough around each shape. Repeat in sections if necessary to fill the parchment paper. Then, simply lift the parchment paper and place it directly onto the pan – cookies in perfect shape ready to bake!
Now then, your cutouts are all baked up into perfect puffy Lofthouse cookies. We need frosting!!! I noticed in many of the recipes that I found online for copycat recipes that they used a standard buttercream to top their cookies. Buttercream is easy peasy – butter, powdered sugar, a little milk – but you know what you get? A delicious, BUTTERY frosting. The real Lofthouse cookies do not have a buttery rich frosting. Also, they get a nice crust to them so they can be stacked and handled without messing up the frosting. Have you noticed that?
So, I peeled through my file folder of family recipes and came out with a “buttercream” that doesn’t use butter at all. It uses shortening. Shortening, powdered sugar, cream, and clear vanilla extract will give you an absolutely pure white, perfect copycat icing for this Lofthouse cookie recipe. Simply beat the frosting ingredients up all together and slather it on the cookies!
Add just a drop of gel based food coloring if you’d like to tint your frosting. I used just a bit of a neon pink to get a color reallll close to our favorite color cookies in the grocery store. Add some sprinkles and eat up!
This Lofthouse cookie recipe makes about 16 nice, thick cookies – more if you roll them thinner. It’s best to store them in an airtight container once the frosting has crusted over to maintain that pillow soft fluff.
Favorite Cookie Recipes
Lofthouse Cookies
Ingredients
Cookie Ingredients
- 1/2 cup salted butter softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring
- 3 cups cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Frosting Ingredients
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring
- 4 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
- pinch salt optional
- sprinkles
Instructions
Cookies
- Beat softened butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs and vanilla flavoring and beat until combined.
- Sift together remaining dry ingredients and mix into butter mixture.
- Chill dough for a minimum of 1 hour.
- Roll dough to 1/2" thick between two sheets of parchment paper.
- Cut cookie shapes with round cookie cutter.
- Bake on cookie sheet for 8 minutes, cookies should barely be forming color on the bottom.
Frosting
- Beat together shortening, powdered sugar, and vanilla flavoring. Add cream while mixing until a thick, smooth consistency is achieved.
- Add food coloring if desired and whip to distribute color evenly.
- Spread thick layer of frosting on cooled cookies and top with sprinkles.
