Snickerdoodles

What not to love about snickerdoodles? Starting with the name it's all uphill from there. How much better can you get than putting 'snicker' and 'doodle' right next to each other? And then to find out it's the name of an outstandingly delicious cookie - covered in sugar and cinnamon?! I know! It's friggin' great!

I've loved snickerdoodles for as long as I can remember. It probably started with the name, after all, this appreciation started when I was a little kid. And I know I'm repeating myself, but honestly - snickerdoodle! A person could never get tired of saying it, let alone a precocious little kid like I was. I still think there's few cookies that beat it, although this is from a person who's really not too keen on sweets. I would most definitely pick a humble little snickerdoodle over a triple-chocolate-fudge-peanut-butter-caramel-crunch cookie, or whatever crap they're coming up with in cookie kingdom these days.

I think next time I whip up a batch of these tasty morsels I'll add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough. I really enjoy the cinnamon-sugar coating and think it could only get better with a hint if cinnamon in the dough too. Also, though it's not something I've found a lot of, I used unbleached white whole wheat flour in the dough. It worked perfectly and I'd much rather use King Arthur's than some bleached-to-hell supermarket brand flour. Just remember when you're measuring flour, to not pack it in, use another cup to pour it into your measuring cup, then level it off with a knife. If you're still not sure what I mean by that, watch this movie from Gourmet. It's really quite shocking the difference in weights.



Whole Wheat Snickerdoodles

Makes approximately 30 cookies

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour (or whatever you want to use)
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
dash salt

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon in a shallow dish. Set aside.

3. Combine sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Beat until combined and creamy.

4. Sift flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt into bowl. Mix until thoroughly combined.

5. Roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter, roll in cinnamon sugar mixture. Press down slightly with the palm of your hand onto baking sheet.

6. Bake 5 minutes, turn baking sheet 180 degrees, bake additional 5 minutes. Let rest on baking sheet for at least three minutes.

7. Remove to cooling rack, or as I like to do (as my mother did before me) cool on flattened brown paper bags from the supermarket(I know some of you people are going to have heart attacks over this saying it's not safe or it's unsanitary, but I prefer to not be such a big whiny baby about things. So there.). The paper bag absorbs some of the residual fats and makes the cookies crisp up quite nicely while allowing the insides to stay soft and chewy.

Now, if you're silly like me, you're going to start taking pictures of your pretty little cookies and forget about the second batch cooking in the oven. This is what happens:



I actually like the overcooked ones better. When I make cookies I like to use a stoneware baking sheet. One of the really cool perks about stoneware is that it's really freakin' hard to burn stuff on it, it tends to just get harder and harder. The cookies left in the oven just got crunchier and I think they turned out nicely. I think I'll send the "proper" ones to work with Husband tomorrow and keep these delicious crunchy ones just for me and a nice tall glass of milk.