What is a food or meal that transports you instantly to your grandma’s kitchen, a favorite holiday, or a specific moment in time? (Have you ever considered the fact that cooking may be the closest we ever come to time travel?)
In chapter 10 of Eat Like a Heroine (Bond With Your Heritage Like a Heroine), we talk about the power of connecting to your loved ones through food.
In this chapter, I write about my own food heritage, which didn’t seem very strong until I began digging a little deeper.
While it appears that much about German culture has been lost in my family since my great-grandpa’s trip across the Atlantic in the early 1900s, the cookie that will forever take me back to Christmases spent with cousins, aunts and uncles, and stories told and retold until harmless embellishments became nearly factual, has German roots.
You can read all about what I learned about my German heritage, and my sweet German grandma Fern who gave this cookie tradition to my family, in Eat Like a Heroine, but the primary purpose of this blog post is to get the scent of these perfectly fluffy cookies wafting through your kitchen ASAP.
Grandma Fern’s Sour Cream Softies Recipe
From Eat Like a Heroine
Think of a traditional sugar cookie, then change the texture to “cloud-like fluffiness” topped with a thick layer of icing that makes each bite feel like stepping lightly on freshly fallen snow. I find sugar cookies to be a bit on the boring side. But these cookies, nostalgia set firmly aside, are interesting. And that’s a purely, unbiased fact.
But please, by all means, don’t take my word for it …
Ingredients
½ C unsalted butter, softened
1 C sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ C sour cream
Mix together these and set aside
3 ¼ C flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
For the frosting
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1 lb. powdered sugar
¼ C milk
1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Beat together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla on high speed of
an electric mixer for two minutes, scraping bowl as needed. - Add the sour cream and mix.
- Add flour mixture and beat on low until well-blended.
Dough will be very soft. - Roll out onto a lightly floured surface, ¼ inch thick. Cut
into desired shapes with cookie cutters and place on
parchment lined pan. - Bake at 350 degrees F (177 C) for 10-12 minutes until
bottoms are just barely golden brown.
For the frosting
- Beat butter in an electric mixer until smooth.
- Add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla and beat until smooth.
- Spread onto cooled cookies.
“What a beautiful inheritance to leave for the ones who come after you, these edible stories that pass effortlessly through generations, that are as theoretically accessible as the kitchen, and the closest thing to your grandma’s embrace.” – Eat Like a Heroine
Have you ever eaten a Sour Cream Softie? (And did you call them by this, or another name?) If not, will you make them today?
