Snickerdoodles

“It tastes like fall!” Jeff exclaimed, with a giddy, boyish grin on his face.  He returned his attention to the open container of cinnamon-scented cookies, stuck his whole head in the opening, and inhaled deeply.  “Ah…fall!”

Rewind 24 hours.  I was talking with my coworker, for whom I had been promising to make cookies.  When asked what his favorites were, he responded “Chocolate chip…or Snickerdoodle.” Perfect, I thought.  I had been craving Snickerdoodles, so Snickerdoodles would be made!

I don’t know about you, but I think Snickerdoodles are one of the best cookies on the planet.  The smooth, buttery cookie coated with a mix of cinnamon and sugar makes my knees week.  Just the thought of the cinnamon cookies tucked away in the kitchen makes me nearly want to stop typing this post and run, wild-eyed for the container.  But I won’t, because then where would you get the recipe for yours?

I find the majority of my recipes online, with my favorite online recipe website being Allrecipes.com.  They have an extensive database with tons and tons of options and choices for searching for your perfect recipe.  My favorite is the ability to sort by rating.

I typed “Snickerdoodles” into the search engine, sorted the results by rating, and looked for the highest number of rates.  Sometimes you have to skip over the ones with five stars, because, yes they have five stars, but they only have 2 ratings.  The recipe I chose was given 4.5 stars with 2580 rates.  Sounded good to me!  So without further ado…Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles!

Snickerdoodles
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (NOT IN THE MICROWAVE!)
1.5 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract (the real stuff, please)
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour*
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400*.  Cream butter and together until just combined.  I learned from Jenna that over beating your butter and sugar can make cookies spread and not stay fluffy.  I never knew what did that.  Thanks for the explanation, Jenna! After your butter and sugar are nicely creamed, add your eggs and vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together your flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.  Combine slowly with the butter mixture.

*You would think there would be a picture of the prepared cookie dough here.  Guess I got a little anxious to put the cookies in the oven…

In a small dish (I used a cake pan), combine the sugar and cinnamon.  Confession…I didn’t actually measure out the sugar and cinnamon.  I just dumped a bunch of sugar in the dish and then added enough cinnamon to my liking.  I wet the tip of my finger, dipped it in the mixture, and tasted it.  I was looking for a sweet, yet spicy flavor, and I was pleasantly rewarded.  It’s your choice: measure or don’t measure.  But make the cookies.  Your friends, family, and stomach will love you for it.

Using a mini ice cream scoop, I scooped the dough into balls and dropped them in the cinnamon sugar.

I rolled the pan around, even doing the little frying pan chef wrist flick (you know what I’m talking about) at times.

Just make sure the dough balls are evenly coated, then transfer them to a cookie sheet.  Don’t forget to either line your sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper, or spray with cooking spray.

I fit 16 mini balls on my cookie sheet.  I baked them for exactly 8 minutes in the 400* oven and they were PERFECT!  My ovens have generally yielded fantasticly moist and golden brown cookies after 8 minutes.

You want to avoid overbaking.  That will leave your cookies too chewy.  Well, that’s my opinion anyway.  You may like your cookies like that.  Who am I to judge?

I got over 5 dozen of these bad boys out of this recipe, but my cookies were smallish.  OK, quite reading this.  It’s over.  Go set out some butter so you can make these cookies!

*I only had about 3/4 cup all purpose flour, so I substituted bread flour for the rest.  The cookies (as you can tell) turned out great!  According to a little research, all purpose flour and bread flour can be interchangeable, though I think I’d prefer to use AP flour when it’s called for.

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