Description
No sugar cookie will ever hold a candle to my Gram’s puffy sugar cookies. They’re big, soft, and perfect in their simplicity. These make a big batch, so they’re excellent when you get called on to bring snacks for your kids’ baseball or softball teams.
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 sticks butter, at room temperature (227 g)
- 1 cup oil (preferably cold-pressed safflower or sunflower, see note) (236 mL)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200 g)
- 1 cup powdered sugar (120 g)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (585 g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon salt
For finishing:
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g)
Instructions
- Beat the butter in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer just to soften it. Slowly drizzle in the oil with the mixer on until you have a smooth mixture of butter and oil. It’s okay if it’s a little lumpy right now. It’ll get smoothed out once you add the sugars and eggs.
- Add in the sugars and beat to combine.
- Mix in the eggs and the vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then mix for a few more seconds until you have a very smooth batter, almost like a cake batter.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in another bowl.- With the mixer on, slowly add the flour to the liquid mixture just until combined.
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
- Towards the end of the chilling time, preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Line sheet trays with parchment (you’ll need 4, but use as many as you have less than 4).
- Scoop out large balls of dough (a little less than 2 oz).
- Spread the sugar (or sprinkles) in a pie plate or other shallow dish. Roll the dough balls in your hands, then in the sugar.
- Place 6 balls on a sheet tray. Dip the bottom of a glass in the dough. Scrape off any dough, and then dip the glass in sugar. Flatten the cookies slightly with the sugared glass bottom.
- Loading up the oven with 2 sheet trays at a time, bake the cookies for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, rotate the sheet trays 180 degrees, and then swap the trays from top to bottom (or bottom to top as it were). Bake for 6 more minutes (12 minutes total).
- Allow the cookies to cool for about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Keep baking cookies, making sure you start with cooled pans if you don’t have 4 pans. Note that one of your last batches will have 7 cookies if you’re using a Vollrath yellow scoop. Just space them a little differently on the pan–there is plenty of room so that they don’t bake together.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can also freeze these cookies or the dough itself for up to 3 months.
Notes
A note on oil: I’ve moved away from using industrial seed oils in my cooking. For these cookies, you really do want the softness that oil gives to baked goods. As such, try to use neutral unrefined, high oleic or cold pressed oils like safflower, sunflower. La Tourangelle makes some really good oils that will change how you think about oil. Olive oil is good too, though it gives these cookies a distinct Mediterranean flavor (add some lemon or orange zest if you do use olive oil and they’ll taste like Sicily).
Make ahead dough: Pack the dough flat into a freezer plastic bag, removing as much of the air as you can. Freeze the dough. Set the dough in the fridge overnight to thaw the day before you want to make your cookies.
Scoop of your dreams: I love cookie scoops for the time saving, even results they give you. For this recipe, a Vollrath yellow scoop (1 7/8 oz) is the perfect size. Alternatively, feel free to eyeball it!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes + 30 minutes chilling time
- Cook Time: 24 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 301
- Sugar: 17
- Sodium: 202
- Fat: 17
- Saturated Fat: 5
- Unsaturated Fat: 0
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 35
- Fiber: 1
- Protein: 3
- Cholesterol: 34