Super Snickerdoodles

Maybe it's because I can't eat during the day, but I spend a whole lot of time thinking about what I'm going to eat later.  Since I still had a little bit of leftovers, I was focused on dessert.  While I love chocolate chip cookies, I was focused on something a little easier.  I spent some time exploring the various snickerdoodle recipes out there.

Snickerdoodles are the first thing I remember cooking in home economics class back in middle school.  Somewhere between sewing a stuffed bunny and a mini pillow, we made snickerdoodles.  Anyway, I couldn't remember the recipe from back then so I settled on the one below adapted from Mr. Lagasse's recipe.

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 salt
1/2 cup shortening
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 3 tablespoons
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl.  With handheld or standing mixer, beat together the shortening and butter.

Add the 1 1/2 cups sugar and beat.  It will begin to look granulated.

Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla and mix in well.

Add the flour mixture and blend until smooth.

Mix the 3 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl.  Roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls.

Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar.

Flatten the balls into 1/2 inch thick disks, spacing them evenly on unlined cookie sheets.

Bake until light brown, but still moist in the center, about 10 - 12 minutes.  Keep a close eye on it because it can turn hard pretty quickly!

My spacing wasn't exactly perfect.  The cookies got pretty close to each other.

These cookies were incredibly easy to make and were absolutely delicious! They take about 45 minutes to an hour to make including prep and bake time and the pretty easy clean up.

Hungry yet?