Cream Cheese Icing Cookies

I came up with these on the spur of the moment. I was baking cookies for an event and ran out of ingredients and didn’t have time to go to the store. I remembered that I had cream cheese icing in the freezer and thought to myself “hmmm, that’s fat and sugar, just need to add a few other things, wonder if I can make these into cookies?” Fortunately it worked out, and a new cookie was born!

INGREDIENTS

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temp
8 ounces cream cheese, room temp
2 tbsp sour cream
2 pounds confectioner’s sugar, sifted + extra for coating finished cookies
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
9 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

1 – Make cream cheese icing: blend together butter, cream cheese, and sour cream until fully incorporated, then mix in confectioner’s sugar, 1 cup at a time, mix until smooth.
2 – Add eggs, 1 at a time.
3 – Add vanilla, lemon, and almond extracts (may substitute 1 tbsp + 2 tsp of creme bouquet flavoring, wedding bouquet flavoring, or princess emulsion)
4 – Sift together dry ingredients and slowly add to icing mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated.
5 – Chill for at least one hour.
6 – Scoop using small cookie scoop (1 tbsp) onto parchment lined baking sheets (12 per half-sheet sized baking sheet), then moisten fingers and flatten cookies lightly.
7 – Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12-14 minutes.
8 – Move cookies immediately from baking sheets to cooling racks and cool completely.
9 – Coat cookies in powdered sugar.
Makes 7 doz.