Awesome Basic Snickerdoodle Cookies

I have made hundreds, if not thousands, of cookies in my life. But if I think back on it, snickerdoodles were probably like .01% of them. I just never think about them for some reason. While I enjoy them, they’re not my favorite cookie. But then I realized—that’s why they’re perfect to make, because I won’t be as tempted to chow down 24/7.

Other thing I realized? That other people LOVE them. They rave about them, write odes to them, and break diets to devour on them. Also, they’re kind of like coffee cake in cookie form—or at least that’s what I told myself when I was eating one with my morning espresso last week.

Also, I got to thinking about it and I could probably count the number of homemade snickerdoodles I’ve ever had on my hands. Or hands and toes now that I’ve made them. For some reason, all I ever get is store-bought snickerdoodles. So it’s time to change that.

Start with the sugar and oil. We’ve taken to using oil (corn, canola, vegetable) in most of our family cookie recipes. For decades my mom (and probably her sisters) used butter-flavored Crisco, but in the interest of health and such we’ve been experimenting with oil for awhile. This was the first time making snickerdoodles with oil, but they turned out great. But if you prefer, you can use the butter-flavored shortening.

Combine the oil and sugar. I’m obsessed with using wooden spoons to make cookies, for some reason in my head it comes out better.

Add the eggs.

Cream in the eggs. It was funny, to me this mixture looked like lemon curd.

Add about a cup of the flour, and the rest of the dry ingredients (salt, cream of tartar, etc.). Mix those together. Adding the dry ingredients with some flour helps it get combined evenly instead of accidentally getting a mouthful of baking soda.

Add the rest of the flour, to consistency. You’ll have to use your judgment here. It’s always just a little drier than I think it should be, but ends up becoming slightly more moist. It’s important not to just add all the flour at once and be done with it, because you’ll end up with way too dry dough half the time. This is especially true when you’re using oil instead of shortening, it will act just a little differently every time.

Now we’re in business. Also, this looks like peanut butter ice cream to me. Which sounds delicious.

Toss the sugar and cinnamon together. I literally tossed them (like you would flipping an omelette) because I was too lazy to get a mixing utensil out.

You’ll start rolling your dough into little balls. Definitely be careful not to go TOO big, at least at first. If you make them too big and the texture’s slightly off, you’ll end up with a weird cookie pancake.

Roll them in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on a baking sheet. Doesn’t this look like some weird kind of truffle?

Bake until they’ve puffed, cracked, and started to slightly solidify. For me in my oven it was about 10 minutes total. In my oven in college (probably the only other time I’ve made these) it was more like 8. So just keep an eye on them.

Beee-youtiful!

Other go-to cookie recipes you’ll love:

Little under 1 cup oil OR 1 cup of butter-flavored Crisco (or Spectrum) shortening
1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
2 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
For rolling in: 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Cream shortening and sugar.
Stir in eggs.
Add the dry ingredients, saving back some of the flour at first. Then add the rest of the flour until it reaches the right consistency.
Roll into balls and roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.