Home » Recipes » Desserts » Cookies » Soft Maple Sugar Cookies
posted by Crissy Pageon Sep 10, 2016 (updated Jan 19, 2024) 44 comments »
Soft maple sugar cookies. Just saying the name of this delicate and delicious little cookie makes my mouth water. They’re perfect for the holidays or any time you’re craving a sweet sugar cookie that literally melts in your mouth.
Soft Maple Sugar Cookies Recipe
I picked up this recipe in the Fall Baking edition of Better Homes and Gardens. I’ve mentioned it before, but the holiday baking issues of BHG are my go-to for fantastic desserts. Some of my other favorite recipes from the magazine are my Melt-In-Your-Mouth Pumpkin Cookies and Buttery Pumpkin Cookies. Mmm!
When my husband took a bite of these pretty soft maple sugar cookies he said, “Wow, these are perfect in every way.” My husband isn’t a huge critic when it comes to desserts, but I don’t usually hear such an enthusiastic review.
I’ve made plenty of sugar cookies over the years and it’s interesting how each sugar cookies recipe has its own unique flavor and texture.
I am really loving this recipe because it’s both soft and crispy. The middle of the cookie is so chewy and moist and the edges have just enough crisp to make them truly divine.
Even if you’re not a huge fan of maple flavor, I think you’ll love this recipe. The maple flavor is delicate and doesn’t overpower the sugar cookie. These cookies are fantastic on their own, but the maple icing really sends them over the top.
I think these cookies are just beautiful and perfect for holiday parties. If you wanted to make them even more festive you could add some red and green sprinkles to the top after you drizzle on the maple icing. Chopped nuts sprinkled on top would be cute and yummy too.
These soft maple sugar cookies were such a hit with my entire family. Like my husband said, they really are just about perfect.
Yield: 48 cookies
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 14 minutes
Soft maple sugar cookies are sweet, delicate, and absolutely delicious.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. cream of tartar
- 1/8 tsp. salt
- 3 egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
Maple icing
- 1/4 cup heavy cream or milk
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 3 tbs. pure maple syrup
- 2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- In a large bowl beat butter and shortening with a mixer on medium for 30 seconds. Add the next 6 ingredients (through the salt). Beat on medium for 2 minutes, scraping bowl as needed. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Beat in flour.
- Shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place 3 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until edges are lightly browned (tops will still look slightly soft).
- Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Remove; cool on a wire rack. Centers will dip as cookies cool. Drizzle with maple icing.
Maple Icing
- Stir together 1/4 cup heavy cream or milk with 1/4 cup melted butter and 3 tablespoons of pure maple syrup. Whisk in 2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar to make icing drizzling consistency.
Notes
Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 48Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 152Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 22mgSodium: 59mgCarbohydrates: 24gFiber: 0gSugar: 20gProtein: 1g
Cookies
originally published on Sep 10, 2016 (last updated Jan 19, 2024)
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44 comments on “Soft Maple Sugar Cookies”
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Cory — Reply
Really need to edit recipe dough needs to be chilled. Otherwise they spread
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Terry botkin — Reply
I have learned to chill the dough before I make any cookies. I’m going to try thiss recipe with butter, I am making several Christmas cookies for giveaway and I’ve run to the store 1000 times
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Jude — Reply
When you measure the maple syrup for the cookie dough, do you use a liquid or a fry measuring cup?
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liz — Reply
these are by far the worst cookies i’ve ever made. they are as flat as paper. i tried to fix the dough as i went along, but nothing could fix these. absolutely horrible. a waste of baking material.
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Amy Stein — Reply
I should have read comments first! Adding extra flour for the rest of the batch.
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Brittney — Reply
I made these today and I think i will cut down on the sugar a bit. They are pretty sweet. I baked my first batch right after mixing all ingredients @300 for 14 mins and when they came out they were smooth and very flat (they had spread out massively) so i decided to chill the remaining dough while waiting on the first batch to bake. I then baked my (chilled) second batch at 350 for 12 mins and they are perfect. If I could post a picture I would. Second batch looks just like the pictures!
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Margie — Reply
In the process of making these now, followed recipe to the T. They did spread, they are very sweet I did raise temperature to 340 and baked for about 14 minutes, some were under done. Told my husband about all the reviews and how different they were, he said leave them the way the are they are fine. Not sure if I’ll put the glaze on but they taste good, I was expecting them almost to look like a “crackle” cookie
Rating: 4
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Elizabeth Capozzoli — Reply
These sound amazing!! How you described them- a little crispy on the edge and chewy in the middle is exactly how I like all my cookies to be! :) Pinning for later, thank you for sharing!!!
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Barbara — Reply
Oh, how I wanted these to serve on maple sugaring day. The dough tastes delicious. Unfortunately, they spread into one big cookie sheet. Perhaps you could review the ingredients. Maybe, not enough flour.
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chahinez — Reply
I completely love cookies that are both crispy and soft. It’s pretty much the best of both worlds… I made this recipe and everyone absolutely loved it. Perfect fall/holiday cookie out there :)
Rating: 5
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Lynda — Reply
I made these and we loved them. I cut the sugar to 1 1/4 cups and they are still very sweet. I might play with that in the future. Also, I can’t figure out why the recipe says it makes 20 cookies. I easily got four dozen out of this recipe and I rolled the balls at about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches. I will definitely make them again.
Rating: 5
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Megan H — Reply
I’ve made these cookies many times and I’ve adjusted the frosting (used to only taste the powdered sugar) to 1 cup powdered sugar and added more maple and some brown sugar. The fiance is addicted:)
Rating: 5
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Amy Stein — Reply
The reason your cookies are spreading is
when you use all butter using shortening makes a huge difference. I followed recipe exactly and they were perfect.-
Jamie — Reply
Not true because I used half shortening and they’re still spreading. I followed the recipe exactly.
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Amy Stein — Reply
The flavor of these cookies is wonderful just as it is written. I did make a batch with part maple sugar just because we use that all the time, still wonderful. I liked them baked at the 12 minute mark and if I wanted some a little crunchy I added a few more minutes. This cookie is a bit flat. If you want it to be more puffy you might add a bit more flour. We loved them as is.
Rating: 5
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Heather — Reply
I made these cookies exactly as posted. Didn’t change a thing. Baked for 14 mins. Cooled on cookie sheet for 5 mins then moved to rack to finish cooling. Made frosting exactly as listed and iced when cookies were cooled completely (put frosting in zip lock, snipped end and squeezed on to cookies)Great texture, great taste, huge hit at cookie exchange.
Rating: 5
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Lynne Favreau — Reply
LOL, I didn’t read comments before making them so I didn’t have any problems. I did note the unusual flour amount, and made sure the cookies were spaced out the 3 inches. I expected them to spread and they did. However, they looked exactly like the picture, came out exactly as I expected and the family proclaimed them one of the best cookies they ever had.^^Shrug^^ I would not substitute fake maple syrup for pure maple syrup. Fake stuff is corn syrup which behaves differently, as in, it prevents recrystallization of sugar so perhaps if that was substituted the cookies would have spread more, and stayed softer/wetter?
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Sam — Reply
I added 1/2 cup more flour. Increased temp to 320 and baked 15 mins. Came out perfect!
Rating: 4
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Nuni — Reply
My husband asked me why I tried so many new cookie recipes? This is why. These are a keeper. I adapted the frosting with more maple syrup and a touch of maple extract. Incredible! He knows why now… Hahahaha!
Rating: 5
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Crissy — Reply
Haha, that’s right! Your hubby is lucky to have a wonderful wife who loves to bake! :)
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Emma — Reply
These cookies are absolutely perfect! My son asked why I made them today, when he thinks I should have been making them ALL of HIS LIFE! I took some to work and they asked me to NEVER bring them again. They are simply too good to resist! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
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Tim — Reply
Do these need to be refrigerated?
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Kristin — Reply
I made these for Christmas, adding extra flour as well as some maple extract to the dough. These came out great and were a hit! Definitely going to make these again.
Rating: 5
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Katie — Reply
Highly recommend making these with caramel glaze (a little caramel extract, a pinch of heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar, and water–so that they dry quicker). Tastes like fall in a cookie
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Inazea — Reply
I recently tried these without the recipe adjustments the comments suggested. (I like making my own mistakes^^). I rolled the dough into 15g balls and baked them at 150°C.
The result … thin and crispy. A bit like too-thin chocolate chip cookies. Which I could have expected as the dough tasted a lot like chocolate chip cookie dough. I learned: needs more flour.
They taste fine, a little sweet, but otherwise okay. It’s not what I expected, though. I’ll try them with an additional cup of flour. -
Melissa — Reply
I made these last night with my kiddos and they turned out GREAT! I substituted coconut oil for the shortening and the cookies are seriously delish. Thanks for this recipe; I know that we will be making it for years to come!
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Indigo — Reply
Hi. I just made these cookies last night and here my two cents. They were way too sweet!! I didn’t make the icing and boy am I glad! This can be a decent recipe with some changes. I don’t know about you but I expect recipies to work without having to adjust key ingredients like flour & sugar. That being said, I would reduce the granulated sugar to 1/2 cup & keep the brown + maple syrup at 1/4 cup. One cup of sugar is plenty for these. That should now allow for the 1 3/4 cups of flour to be almost right, maybe adding a little more if needed. Also, the cookies needed to cool for at least 10 min on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack. Plus, the icing looks pretty but I’m not sure these cookies need it. Finally, I used butter flavored shortening along with European butter, that combo is a great one for sugar cookies. Happy baking :-)
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Vanessa — Reply
I read the better homes and garden recipe and made sure all the ingredients are the same. They were except for the icing where they had 3-4 cups powdered sugar rather than 2-2 1/2 cups. Just letting anyone know in case they had trouble with the icing!
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Cyndia Rios-Myers — Reply
Divine!! Perfection!!! Oh My Goodness! These were the best cookies I’ve ever had. The hubs agrees!!! Well done!!
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Payton — Reply
I just made these & they tasted so good!! The only thing is I think they needed more flower or something else, because the dough wasn’t thick enough for cookies.
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clapperkidsmom — Reply
Reading the ingredient list I had my doubts about the flour measurement and oven temp. As soon as we mixed up the ingredients, it verified that we needed more flour. We added an extra 1 C of flour. The lack of flour and low oven temp would cause extreme batter spreading. I also increased the oven temp to 350 degrees. (We used all butter and regular syrup – Log Cabin brand.) Cookies didn’t spread too much, and the consistency was fine. Flavor wise, they were alright. We actually preferred the icing flavor over the cookie flavor. I think next time I’ll use our stand by sugar cookie recipe but use maple extract instead of almond and then this icing recipe.
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clapperkidsmom — Reply
Side note. We did NOT add butter to the frosting. We just used the powdered sugar, maple syrup and milk. Whenever we make a simple powdered sugar drizzle for our sugar cookies it’s usually a mixture of powdered sugar, extract, and milk/cream. Works great.
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Amy Stein — Reply
Log Cabin is not “regular” maple syrup, it is a maple syrup substitute made with corn syrup and maple flavor.
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Elaine — Reply
Has anyone tried this just using regular syrup instead of pure maple syrup? After reading the comments..I am going to add a wee bit more flour and a little less of the sugar. I will see how they turn out. Wish me luck!!
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Amy Stein — Reply
What is “regular” syrup? Corn syrup? Yuck.
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Brandy — Reply
Ditto to the cookies spreading quite a bit when baking and not seeming quite right. I would think it’d need more flour too. The flavor is good! But a bit over sweet, especially after adding the maple icing. (Which is very good…I’d only do 2 cups, and nix the 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Maybe adding more flour and a little less sugar would balance things nicely. I thought it seemed like A Lot of sugar compared to the flour.
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BakerGirl — Reply
I also tried making this and have some suggestions in case others have tried and the recipe did not work out.
I increased the flour to 2 3/4 cups this seemed to make the dough less sticky.
I also used my small cookie scoop rather than rolling into a ball
Finally I let the dough cool in the freezer for about 10 minutes. I also placed the dough in the fridge in between my putting onto the cookie sheet as I did not have enough sheets for all the cookies to do them all at once.
I kept the temperature at 300 and cooked them for about 15 minutes. However some of them were still uncooked on the inside but only slightly. -
suzy — Reply
am wondering about the 300 oven temp? cookies spread quite a bit, browned around the edges, but were raw inside at 17 min. Recipe looked good, but something’s not right…
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Cindy — Reply
I made the soft maple sugar cookies & even though I over-baked, they are outstanding!
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Anahata56 — Reply
Are you sure about the flour? I made these and they were an epic fail–they spread everywhere even with freezing cold dough. Similar recipes call for TWO and 3/4cups flour….?
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Vanessa — Reply
Same here! I added another 2/3 cup of flour and they turned out perfectly ?
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Melanie — Reply
How does the recipe turn out with all butter instead of half butter and half shortening?
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Jenn — Reply
Did you try this? I’m going to try it today and was wondering the same thing.
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