Chewy Sugar Cookies

[Soft and chewy is the best way to describe these amazing sugar cookies.  I could eat these cookies hot, room temperature, or frozen. Anyway you have them, they are just plain yummy.  I believe I might have eaten a cookie every night this week with a bowl of chocolate ice cream! 

The recipe comes from Americas Test Kitchen. When I made the cookies, they spread out quite a bit while baking.  This made the end result a rather large cookie (not to mention the fact that they ran into each other on the baking sheet because the spread out so much).  I think next time I will refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before I bake the cookies.  That should let the butter firm up just enough so that they hold their shape a little bit better during the baking process.] 

Chewy Sugar Cookies

2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups sugar, plus an additional 1/3 cup for rolling

2 oz cream cheese, softened and cut into 8 pieces

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted and still warm

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 large egg

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, place 1 ½ cups sugar and cream cheese.  Pour warm butter over sugar and cream cheese and whisk (by hand, not by electric mixer) until combined.  Whisk in oil until incorporated.  Add egg, milk, and vanilla and continue to whisk until smooth.  Add flour mixture and mix with a rubber spatula (again by hand!) until dough is soft and homogeneous. 

Divide dough into 24 equal pieces, about 2 tablespoons each.  Using hand, roll dough into balls.  Roll balls into the remaining 1/3 cup sugar and place on prepared baking sheet (I could only fit 6 on each baking sheet because they were so big).  Using the bottom of a drinking glass, flatten dough balls until about 2 inches in diameter.  Sprinkle with any remaining sugar.

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, or just until edges begin to brown, rotating the pan after 7 minutes.  Cool for 5 minutes on baking pan, and then move cookies to a wire rack to cool at room temperature.