“Why does this recipe list Crisco and oil separately? Crisco is oil!”
The year was 1997, and my roommate, Treuty, was standing in our apartment trying to figure out a sugar cookie recipe. The recipe, which her mom had handwritten on an index card for her, claimed it made the “best ever” sugar cookies. So naturally we wanted to try them, and naturally we also knew very little about cooking.
I told her that “Crisco” probably meant shortening. She pointed to the label of our bottle of oil … specifically to the Crisco logo that adorned the top of it.
So Treuty did the thing that young people used to do before “Google” was a verb. She called her mom.
“Oh, I don’t know, honey. … I got that recipe from somebody who cooks. You know I don’t do that,” her mom told her. So we were back to square one.
I can’t remember exactly how we resolved the conflict that day. I think she tried it my way, with both shortening and oil. Regardless, I can vouch that the resulting cookies were indeed delicious — buttery and tender with a slight chew in the middle. Just the way I like them.
I don’t have access to Treuty’s box of recipes anymore, of course. But I do have several tried-and-true cookbooks compiled by workplaces, community groups and churches.
Whenever I remember a favorite food from my youth, I reach for one of those community cookbooks to see if I can find a recipe for something similar. I guess you could say these compilations are the Google of my youth. I hit the jackpot this time in a cookbook my aunt helped edit many years ago for her church in Tennessee.
I know it’s very similar because it calls for cream of tartar in addition to both shortening and another fat. The two fats and cream of tartar are what give these cookies their amazing texture. To me, it’s worth keeping cream of tartar in the cupboard just for these cookies, but cream of tartar is also the secret ingredient in homemade playdough. You can find cream of tartar in the spice aisle.
But of course the real question is, “Are these REALLY the ‘best ever’ sugar cookies?” Well, I think so. They are too soft to be rolled out, so this is not the recipe you should reach for when you want to make your Christmas cookies. But they are delicious and easy and truly worth the effort of making them from scratch. Each of my family members independently commented on how good they were. That is unusual in this household, even for a dessert.
Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville.
“BEST EVER” SUGAR COOKIES
Yield: about 30 cookies. Recipe doubles well.
1 cup sugar, plus extra for topping
½ cup shortening (I used butter flavored Crisco.)
½ cup butter, margarine, or oil (I used butter.)
1 egg
2 cups flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vanilla
■ Preheat oven to 375 F. In a mixing bowl, cream together 1 cup of the sugar and all the shortening, butter or oil, and egg until fully incorporated.
■ Add vanilla and dry ingredients and mix only until no flour streaks remain. Dough will be stiff. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, allowing several inches of space around each cookie. Press the cookies down a bit using a fork or the method described below.
■ OPTIONAL extra step to make cookies prettier: Butter the bottom of a drinking glass and spread a bit of granulated sugar on a plate. (This sugar will top your cookies; you can use colored sugar or substitute sprinkles instead.) Press the buttered bottom of the glass into the sugar to coat the bottom of the glass with sugar. Very gently press the tops of the cookies down with the glass. (You do not need to press them as flat as they will go, and they tend to stick if you try to press them too flat. You really just want to make them less ball-like and more disc-like.) Add butter and sugar to the bottom of the glass after every few cookies or whenever the cookies begin to stick to the glass.
■ Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes.
May 20, 2021 at 12:56AM
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