I have a sweet tooth. That should come as no surprise to you. I prefer sweet to salty typically (though I do love sweet AND salty a la peanut M&Ms and chocolate covered pretzels) and believe that there is ALWAYS room for dessert. So I typically like almost all dessert recipes. But – let me tell you – this cookie recipe is AMAZING. If you like soft sugar cookies with frosting, this recipe is for you.

Seriously. I typically have a hard time eating my baked goods after I bake them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have a cookie a little bit later, but these … these, I ate 3 of these in one day – that’s how good they were. Even B, a non-sugar cookie lover, who was hesitant to try them out, really liked these cookies.

I made mine with Halloween-theme and cut them out with pumpkin and other cookie cutters – you can just roll them with your hand into a ball and flatten them out so that they’re even easier to make. Make these cookies now. They are soft and the frosting is so good. You won’t regret it.

The BEST Soft Sugar Cookies With Buttercream Frosting

Here’s what you need:

For the cookie dough

• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 5 1/4 c flour

For the amazing buttercream frosting (from this recipe)

• 1/3 cup butter, at room temperature
• 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ¼ tsp almond extract
• 2 ½ to 3 Tablespoons half-and-half

Here’s what you do:

For the cookies

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and set aside.
• In a large bowl of a standing mixer, cream together butter, oil, sugars, water, eggs and vanilla.
• Add in flour mixture about 1 cup at a time, mixing as you add it to the wet mixture. Mix until everything is combined.
• If you’re making regular (not cookie-cutter) cookies, use your hands to roll about healthy size (a.k.a not exact) round Tablespoon of dough and place it on a cookie sheet. Flatten dough to about ¼ inch tall. If you’re using cookie cutters, you can roll out the dough at this step. Dough should be about ¼ inch tall when you use the cookie cutter. Then place dough on cookie sheet.
• Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  The cookies should be just browning when you take them out. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack. Once they are cooled, store them in the fridge and cool completely before frosting

For the vanilla buttercream frosting

• Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whip until frosting is smooth and fluffy.
• Frost and decorate cooled cookies. If decorating with sprinkles, add immediately after frosting each cookie so that they stick. I added orange food coloring to make the pumpkins. After frosting was dry I also decorated with black gel icing to make jack-0-lanterns.