Grandma Knows Best {Recipe: Grandma Jones' Sugar Cookies II}

This recipe is the second of three sugar cookie recipes I have from my grandmother. I was reluctant to try this one because of the cup of oil, but I'm glad I finally did  They are a light, crispy, not too sweet cookie. I made them for my kids and their friends and they were gone in 0.2 seconds. 

Grandma Jones's Sugar Cookies II

1 egg
1 cup oil
1 cube butter* (1/2 cup, softened)
1 cup sugar 
3 cups flour (sifted)
1/2 teaspoons soda in a little hot water (I used about a teaspoon)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350-375ºF. Beat egg, oil, butter, and sugar well. (I add the vanilla at this point as well) Then add the rest of the ingredients. (I sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, then added to the wet ingredients) Roll in a ball, then roll in sugar before baking. (I found that the cookies did not spread very much when baking, so I flattened them a bit with a flat bottomed cup dipped in sugar. The best results were to remove the cookies 5 minutes into baking, flatten, then returning to the oven to finish baking.) Bake 8-10 minutes, or until the bottoms get a light golden brown.

Cookies on the left were flattened after baking for 5 minutes.
The cookies on the right were flattened before baking.
As you can see, the ones on the right cracked a lot more
on the edges.

Yields about 3 dozen cookies.

*Note: Most of my grandmother's recipes for cookies call for "oleo" (margarine). I don't like using margarine, so that is the one ingredient change I make to her recipes. That and sometimes adding rainbow sprinkles, because sprinkles make everything better!:)

Enjoy!