These cookies were a complete surprise since I was following a recipe I had never made, but my Grandma made them every year according to my mom. She would seek out the Wesson butter flavored oil just to make these cookies. Sadly I was a little late to the shopping game this year and my store had sold out of the only butter flavor oil I knew of – it wasn’t Wesson’s brand. So I went out on a whim and decided to try to just use melted butter in it’s place. I really didn’t know if I was going to end up with butter cookies or sugar cookies or something that doesn’t taste like a cookie at all!

The original recipe card!

I read and read on the internet about replacing butter for oil and oil for butter. I came up to no conclusions other than I should try melted butter instead of softened butter. I went ahead and melted a cup of butter and then used 2/3 cup of melted butter in place of the 2/3 cup of Wesson butter flavored oil. I did a whole cup because I wasn’t sure if I would lose any volume in melting. I did spill a little so this method worked out great for me! I realized later I possibly could have used oil and then add some butter extract – which I did have on hand! Haha, oh well, I’ll try it out next time!

Also, another fun surprise I wasn’t aware that was in store for me is on the recipe card she wrote, “t” which I assumed would be tablespoon, but when I went to add the salt, it seemed to be too much. SOO “t” in this recipe is definitely teaspoon haha. In retrospect she probably would have capitalized the T if it was for Tablespoon. So please note, I did use a whole tablespoon for the vanilla instead of teaspoon, except I do recall only doing one instead of two so maybe that made it okay?

Thanks to my great grandma Nanalee for this recipe holder!

So once the recipe is all mixed together I did use a glass to flatten the rounded globs of dough with sugar. I will also recommend to follow her advice and do rounded TEASPOONS – she is laughing at me up in Heaven for sure. I did globs that were closer to a tablespoon or more and the cookies might have turned out huge.

Do not be fooled, these are giant globs of mystery cookie dough

So I did bake them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes. They turned out giant and puffy! Now I just had to wait for them to cool down and see if they tasted like a cookie!

GREAT NEWS! Despite changing a few ingredients, grandma’s surprise Christmas Cookies turned out to be fluffy sugar tasting cookies! I do wonder if they were suppose to taste more like butter cookies? But the softness and then the sugar pressed on the top really reminded more more of a sugar cookie. Either way, they were great! I’ll write the recipe below as I made these! Mistakes and all!

Grandma’s Surprise Christmas Cookies

Serving Size:
48
Time:
10 minute prep 40 minute baking time
Difficulty:
Advanced Beginner

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup melted butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

  1. Beat or mix butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar
  2. Add flour, baking powder and salt
  3. Mix until blended
  4. Drop by teaspoonful onto un-greased baking sheet, leave about 1-2 inches in between each cookie
  5. Flatten with glass dipped in sugar, sprinkle with granulated sprinkles if desired
  6. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes
  7. Allow to cool on baking sheet, then remove with spatula
  8. Enjoy!

So I might have taken the surprise out for you but these cookies will make a great addition to any cookie tin!

xoxo
-Robin

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