Snickerdoodles
not not a christmas cookie
While this tends to be a relatively classic cookie, I find that I’m generally the only one that shows up with these at cookie swaps and the like. I think people always expect them to be on the table but they fly under the radar for that specific reason. Snickerdoodles are kind of like peanut butter cookies where you might not always want them, but you’ll be glad to have them around. ALSO I’m sort of famous for this recipe amongst my friends and at work, so this is for everyone who has been asking :)
Don’t tell my husband about the snickerdoodle “libel” above - these are his favorites and will eat half a dozen on bake day (which is why you’ll see that I made just over THREE DOZEN in my accompanying instagram reel).
Ingredients1
113 g unsalted butter (1 stick, room temperature)
110 g granulated white sugar (1/2 cup)
33 g light brown sugar (1/4 cup, packed)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla (measure with your heart)
185 g all purpose flour (1 1/3 cup)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp kosher salt (diamond crystal)
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
cinnamon and sugar to make cin sugar mix (I eyeball a 1 part cinnamon to 4 part sugar mix)
Instructions
Cream together the softened butter, granulated white sugar and light brown sugar. This will take a good few minutes and you really want to make sure you get the butter sugar to a fluffy consistency.
Beat in the egg and vanilla; scrape down the bowl to make sure everything is fully incorporated (mix again if needed).2
With a spatula, fold in the flour, cinnamon, kosher salt, cream of tartar and baking soda - be sure to not over mix.
I prefer to portion out the cookie dough before chilling as the dough is easier to handle and reduces chilling time.
The dough must be chilled for at least half an hour - I usually let the oven preheat to 350 F during this time. Also prepare the cinnamon sugar mixture at this stage.
Once the oven has reached temperature and the cookies have sufficiently chilled, toss the cookie dough balls in the cinnamon sugar mix and bake on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
Bake cookies for 12 minutes total. At 9 minutes, you want to open the oven and bang the cookie pan to create some of the ripples in the cookie and to encourage spread, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and resume baking for another 3 minutes. Once the final 3 minutes is up, bang the pan once more before cooling on the counter for a few minutes before serving.
The dough can be made ahead and stored in fridge in an airtight container or bag for up to a week. If longer than a week, I would suggest freezing. You can bake from frozen, but your cook times may vary; if you can plan ahead, move the dough back into the fridge 24 hours before you plan to bake the cookies and bake as instructed in the recipe above.
Regardless of how you choose to store the dough, I strongly suggest portioning / scooping / balling the dough before you store it and toss in the cinnamon sugar mix just before you bake.
This recipe will make a baker’s dozen (I usually get 13-15 cookies)
If you’re scaling this recipe up, I recommend adding the eggs in one at a time and waiting for them to get fully incorporated before scraping down the bowl and adding the next egg.