How to Make Swig Sugar Cookies, But Better

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I don’t know if this is popular in the rest of the US, but here in Utah we have drive-thru soda shops that sell mixed sodas. You can get different fruit purees, flavorings, etc. My favorite is Coke Zero with raspberry puree. The first of these soda places that I was aware of is called Swig, and they sell a dense sugar cookie with pink frosting on top. They usually serve them a little chilled, and they are delicious, especially alongside a Coke Zero with raspberry puree.

I have two complaints against the Swig sugar cookie.

• They are around $2.50 a piece. Now, I fully support bakers getting paid for their work. Baked goods are usually labor intensive. It’s just hard to pay $2.50 for a cookie when my drink costs less than that. Do I do it sometimes though? Yes.
• The Swig cookie is pretty intense. It’s very dense, very big, and very sweet. They sell a smaller version, but it costs almost as much as the regular size.

I set out to make a smaller, lighter, tastier soda shop style sugar cookie, and I feel that I succeeded. Also, you can make the whole batch for around $4.00. That’s $.09 per cookie!

The Process

This dough comes from Mel’s Kitchen Café. The dough really is perfect. It’s soft and pillowy, and bakes up beautifully. I adapted her cookies to be half the size, and have a less sweet icing. Here’s how you make them:

• Cream the butter, oil, sugars and vanilla until fluffy and lightened, about 5 minutes.
• Add the eggs, sour cream, salt, baking powder and cream of tartar and mix.
• Add the flour and mix until just combined.
• To shape the cookies, you scoop 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of dough about an inch and a half apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. The easiest and fastest way to do this is with a medium cookie scoop. I dragged my feet about getting a cookie scoop, and now I’m obsessed with it. Just get one. You’ll love it.
• Next, take a flat-bottomed glass, spray the bottom with cooking spray, and dip it in sugar.
• Press each cookie so that it’s between 1/4 and 1/2 inches thick, like so:

• Bake at 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. Check them at 8. You want them to be just set, but not browned. You don’t want to overcook these cookies.
• Cool on a wire cooling rack.

The Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

For the frosting, I wanted a kind of hybrid of buttercream and cream cheese frosting. To me, American buttercream is often way too sweet, but cream cheese frosting can be kind of heavy. To get the best of both worlds, I made a cream cheese frosting with more butter than you would typically see. That, along with heavy whipping cream and whipping the frosting for 5 whole minutes, achieves a lighter cream cheese frosting that is way less sweet than buttercream. It’s still sweet though, don’t you worry.

Decoration

You can decorate these with all sorts of things! Fruit is very yummy on top. I used fresh strawberries from our garden, and they did not disappoint. My daughter wanted to add sprinkles to some, so we did that too. Both were very fun. You could also dye the frosting pink for that true Swig look.

Whatever you decide, send me a picture when you make them! Tag me @athometestcook.

I hope you love these cookies as much as we do. They would be awesome to take to a baby shower, family dinner, or party.