My mother-in-law’s favorite sugar cookie recipe is a special family recipe!  She’s been making these cookies for years and got the recipe from another relative.  My m-i-l needs to gain weight so I suggested we make these cookies while we were there visiting this summer.  I don’t know if she gained any weight….but I definitely did!!  Oh well, now I remember why I rarely bake cookies.

These cookies are soft and yet delicately crisp at the same time.  They’re rich tasting and melt in your mouth.  They should be rich tasting considering they have one cup of oil and one cup of butter (the Pioneer Woman would like all the butter in these!)  In my opinion, I think these cookies would be great to serve at a wedding or baby shower, especially if rolled in colored sugar to match the colors of the shower.  They’re definitely not healthy so really these should be just special occasion cookies.  Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup sugar (plus extra sugar to roll the cookies in)
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Colored sugar for special occasions
  

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the sugars, butter, oil and salt.  Beat well with mixer.  Add eggs.  Add dry ingredients.  Chill dough.  Make into balls, roll in sugar, and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

Here are the cookies we made at my mother-in-law’s house.  Wish I could take one off the plate right now!