10 Secret Tricks to Make Store-Bought Sugar Cookie Mix Taste Homemade (2024)

Home Recipes Cooking Style Comfort Food

Updated: Feb. 15, 2024

    Your cookies will look (and taste!) like they're made from scratch with these sugar cookie mix hacks.

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    Use real butter in your dough

    Store-bought sugar cookie mixes will give the option of adding in butter or margarine, but always choose butter! It’ll give your cookies the best, closest-to-homemade flavor. Use unsalted butter to be sure your cookies don’t taste too salty. Here’s the difference between unsalted and salted butter.

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    Add extracts

    A teaspoon or two of extracts will noticeably boost flavor when blended into your sugar cookie mix. Vanilla is the obvious choice. For a more intriguing flavor, add both vanilla and almond extracts. Rum, maple and anise are other delicious varieties to consider.

    (Try these flavor hacks that work wonders with store-bought cookie dough.)

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    Stir in citrus zest

    Your sugar cookies will sing with fresh citrus zest added to the mix! Use a Microplane grater to remove one to two tablespoons of fine zest from lemons, limes or oranges, and mix the zest into your dough.

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    Add sour cream

    Stir 3/4 of a cup to one cup of full-fat sour cream in with your cookie mix, butter and egg. Sugar cookies will bake up with a wonderfully soft, cake-like texture. (Here’s why it works!)

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    Mix in tasty ingredients

    Take plain sugar cookies up a notch with exciting mix-ins like chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, toasted chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or M&M’s. Add these after blending your butter and egg into the sugar cookie mix.

    This is our favorite hack for holiday Pillsbury cookie dough.

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    Give your cookie dough some color

    A few drops of food coloring make regular sugar cookie dough so much more fun, whether for drop or cutout cookies. Make your cookies all one color, or make batches of different colors to roll or stack together before slicing and baking.

    You can do more with premade cookie dough than you’d believe!

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    Chill the dough

    One of our favorite tips is to chill cookie dough before baking, and that goes for sugar cookie mix doughs, too. Chilling lets the dough fully hydrate for better-tasting cookies and also firms up butter in the dough so that the cookies won’t spread.

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    Roll cookies in toppings

    Form your sugar cookie dough into balls, then roll them in toppings like sprinkles or colorful sanding sugars. For snickerdoodle-like cookies, try rolling them in a cinnamon-sugar blend. After rolling, bake the cookies as directed.

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    Frost cookies with homemade icing

    You saved time with a store-bought sugar cookie mix, so make an easy, homemade buttercream, cream cheese frosting or decorating icing to top them. Add food coloring or flavored extracts to make them even snazzier. Here’s our recipe for easy royal icing.

    Our editors think THIS is the best store-bought cookie dough out there!

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    Dip your cookies in chocolate

    Gently melt chocolate or white chocolate chips in a microwave or a double boiler. Dip your baked, cooled sugar cookies in the melted chocolate, then let them cool. Once set you can even add a second dip or drizzles of a second kind of chocolate to your cookies.

    Originally Published: January 06, 2022

    Author

    Nancy Mock

    Nancy contributes writing, recipes and food photography to Taste of Home, where she covers regional eats, food history and trending dishes. Her work can also be seen on her website, Hungry Enough to Eat Six, as well as other food-focused publications. Nancy and her family live in New England and she’ll never say no to a plate of gravy-laden pouti...

    10 Secret Tricks to Make Store-Bought Sugar Cookie Mix Taste Homemade (12)

    10 Secret Tricks to Make Store-Bought Sugar Cookie Mix Taste Homemade (2024)

    FAQs

    10 Secret Tricks to Make Store-Bought Sugar Cookie Mix Taste Homemade? ›

    Mix in tasty ingredients

    How to make packaged sugar cookie mix taste homemade? ›

    Use real butter in your dough

    Store-bought sugar cookie mixes will give the option of adding in butter or margarine, but always choose butter! It'll give your cookies the best, closest-to-homemade flavor. Use unsalted butter to be sure your cookies don't taste too salty.

    How to doctor up sugar cookie mix? ›

    There are a few things you can add to your ready - to - bake sugar cookies to give them more flavor . One option is to mix in some vanilla extract or almond extract to enhance the overall taste . You can also add in some cinnamon , nutmeg , or other spices to give the cookies a warm and cozy flavor .

    How can I improve my store bought cookie mix? ›

    Add brown sugar

    Adding it to the pre-made dough will give it more sweetness, a chewier texture, moisture and that homemade flavor you're craving. You can also melt butter with brown sugar and incorporate it into the dough for extra tender, chewier cookies.

    How do you make store bought cookies taste fresh? ›

    All you have to do is pop it in the oven for one minute at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and your cookie should already taste better than when you bought it. Not only will it be warm and smell delicious, but any chocolate chips should be slightly melted, making for a gooier cookie.

    What to add to cookie mix to make them soft? ›

    Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

    Can you over mix sugar cookie dough? ›

    Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

    What happens if you add too much sugar to sugar cookies? ›

    Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown. Adding too little sugar can affect the taste and texture of cookies. Adding too much can cause them to be brittle. Take your time creaming the sugar and butter together at the beginning.

    Can I add peanut butter to store-bought sugar cookie mix? ›

    Sugar cookie dough mix provides many dessert options. You can enjoy your sugar cookies plain, frost them or mix in an ingredient such as peanut butter, nuts or chocolate chips to change the flavor and texture.

    How can I increase my cookie flavor? ›

    Add Spices To Your Dough

    Spices can add an amazing aroma and flavor to your cookies. I use spices like cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to bring out the flavor in many recipes. In addition, spices can become a central part of your cookie. For example, you can add spiced chai to create delicious chai spice oatmeal cookies.

    How do you spruce up boxed sugar cookies? ›

    Add different flavors.

    You could use peppermint, lemon, or almond extract instead of vanilla, dump in plenty of rainbow sprinkles, or even mix in chopped nuts or dried fruit! Let your kids be involved in the planning and let them experiment with different ingredients.

    How to elevate Betty Crocker cookie mix? ›

    Easy Add-In: After creating the dough according to the sugar cookie mix instructions, Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream to create a tangier, cakier and all-around more flavorful cookie. Flavor Twist: For a punchier twist, swap the water in the sugar cookie mix instructions for rum, bourbon or coffee liqueur.

    How do you make box cookie mix less sweet? ›

    How do you make chocolate chip cookies less sweet? Add a bit of salt. As my mother used to tell me, you need some salt to “cut the sweet.” As an example, if you're using 2 cups of sugar in your recipe, add enough salt to equal a total of 1 teaspoon.

    Why are my Betty Crocker sugar cookies hard? ›

    You also might want to make sure your oven temp is accurate. Be gentle. If you handle the dough too much when making cutout sugar cookies, they'll get tough.

    How to make Betty Crocker cookies without butter? ›

    Tips from the Betty Crocker Kitchens

    Melt solid coconut oil in a glass measuring cup in 10-second bursts in the microwave. Because coconut oil has a tolerance for high temperatures, it's generally a good substitute for other fats like shortening and butter. It also makes a good pan prep fat, since it is solid at room.

    What do you need for Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix? ›

    Betty Crocker: You will Need: 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, margarine or spread (Spread should have at least 60% vegetable oil), softened (To soften butter directly from refrigerator, microwave on high 10-15 seconds) (Not melted), 1 tablespoon water.

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