Source: vintagerevivals.com viaAgnes onPinterest

And the description said: Swig Sugar Cookie Recipe. This is the cookie that all other cookies for the rest of your life will be compared to.
So I had to bake it and find out. I tell you, it was hard not to change anything about the recipe. It’s completely out of character for me. I’m not sure I have ever followed a recipe exactly before, ever.  I even went to the store to buy real full fat sour cream, just so it would be perfect.

The dough came out super fluffy and so easy to work with.  Not sticky at all.  And my cookies ended up just like the ones in the picture above (except that the photographer was not nearly as gifted :).).  I put them in the freezer, so they would be cold (like the recipe insists–and yes that was a great idea!)  Then mixed up the frosting and set out for folks to DIY on their cold cookies.

Next was to round up a house full of taste testers.

The verdict:  These were really hard to stop eating.  Maybe because I told them they were the cookies to compare all cookies to, and no one could decide if that were true after just one cookie.  While everyone decided the cookies were excellent, it was hard to say they were better than a really good chocolate chip cookie.

We had lots of frosting left over and  I wondered if the recipe could be improved on.  So Sunday afternoon we made a new version of the cookies in a smaller batch:

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

2/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1 Tbs vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

2 1/2 cups flour

Cream the butter, yogurt, sugars, vanilla  and egg until light and fluffy.  Add remaining ingredients until a soft dough forms.  Drop by Tbs onto a greased cookie sheet and press flat with a glass dipped in sugar.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  Cool on a rack then freeze until cold.  Frost as desired.

The verdict:  The finished cookies looked almost exactly like the original.  The flavor was much better (and they had half the fat of the original cookie),  but the warm cookie texture was not quite as good.  The texture improved a lot after cooling and then again after freezing.  They ended up with a nice crisp edge with a soft interior. The vanilla was an excellent addition.  The dough was not as easy to work with–it was a lot more sticky.  Chilling a bit would have helped this.  If we bake them again, we will use our second recipe–they went over smashingly with the family who wished I had baked a bigger batch :). And I STILL have frosting–so looks like more baking in our future.  Look out kid’s at school–we need a place to share all these cookies :).