Snickerdoodles! Soft, warm and chewy. Straight out of the oven.
Can you smell the cinnamony goodness?
For some reason, these cookies always make me think of autumn. Maybe it’s the cinnamon. Maybe it’s the shorter, cooler days (yes, even in Florida) that make me want to bake.
This recipe comes from my lovely sister in law Kristen. Not only does she have 4 of the cutest children on the planet, but she also makes one mean Snickerdoodle.
Here’s what you need:
Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Salt, Cream of Tartar, Cinnamon, 2 eggs, 1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter*.
*The original recipe calls for 1 cup of Crisco but my can of Crisco was looking a little worse for the wear and slightly funky. Since I’ve clearly never met a stick of butter that I didn’t like, I made the substitution and the cookies turned out great.
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Let’s talk about Cream of Tartar. In scientific terms, Cream of Tartar is really Potasium Bitartrate. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? Apparently it is a by-product of wine making. Learn something new everyday thanks to the google.
Cream of Tartar is found in the spice section of the store and used often in cooking when whipping egg whites or in baking to make things rise, light and fluffy. Since it’s not one of my most frequently used spices, I usually opt to buy a new jar unless I’m positive that my jar of Cream of Tartar is less than a year old.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
If you’re using butter, it is important to let it sit out at room temperature for a few hours to soften. It’s always a good idea when baking to have all of the ingredients at the same temperature. I also let the eggs sit out for a bit so they are not ice cold. This really helps everything to combine smoothly.
Combine the softened butter, 1 & 1/2 cups sugar and 2 eggs in a large bowl or in the bowl of a mixer.
Cream these ingredients together until they are well mixed, light and fluffy. Creaming is the fancy cooking term for mixing used in baking. It almost always involves butter, sugar and eggs. Your ingredients are “creamed” when they have a fluffy texture and light yellow color.
In a separate bowl, combine 2 & 3/4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar and 1/4* teaspoon salt. *The original recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon salt. However, I was using one stick of salted butter so I reduced the amount of extra salt.
Remember when you are measuring dry ingredients like flour or baking soda to level off your measuring spoons and cups. Another handy tip is to use your measuring cup to fluff up the flour before you measure. Both fluffing and leveling will help the measurements to be more accurate.
Another handy tip for dry ingredients is to combine them with a whisk. This will help the baking powder and cream of tartar to be equally distributed throughout the flour rather than in one clump. I’m just full of handy tips today.
Now, with the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture.
Mixer action shot!
When the flour has all been added, the dough should be quite thick. Mix or stir just until the flour is all incorporated. Don’t over-mix.
In a small bowl, combine 4 Tablespoons Sugar with 2 teaspoons cinnamon. This will be the yummy coating for the cookies.
Using clean hands, take a small bit of dough and quickly roll it into a small ball about the size of a ping-pong ball. If your dough is overly sticky, you can refrigerate it for 20 minutes and it will be easier to roll. I didn’t want to wait an extra 20 minutes for cookies so I just rolled right away.
It is fairly important that the balls of dough are approximately the same size so that the cookies bake evenly.
Some people use a measuring spoon or little ice cream scoop, but I’ve found that if I can make my dough balls all about the same size by hand if I just pay attention to what I’m doing. One less thing to wash. (Have I mentioned that my dishwasher has been broken all week. Ugh.)
Drop the dough balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture and roll them around to coat evenly.
Place the cinnamon sugared dough balls on a cookie sheet leaving plenty of space for them to spread out during baking.
The Kitchen Gadget Queen got one of these fancy French Silpat Baking Mats for Christmas last year. I thought I’d try an experiment and bake one batch on a regular non-greased pan and one batch on the fancy Silpat liner thingy.
Bake the cookies at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.
They will be soft and slightly cracked on the top. Fully of cinnamony goodness.
I give TOP MARKS to the fancy French liner! Both batches of cookies were wonderful, but the ones baked on the Silpat liner were much fluffier and softer than the cookies baked on the regular pan.
If you’re a cookie baker, I recommend putting a Silpat on your holdiay wish list!
Bake some Snickerdoodles today!
I seriously think that these are the best non-chocolate cookies I’ve ever had.
Here’s the recipe!
