Snickerdoodles

my Mom's recipe

Ahhh... the Snickerdoodle.  What a name.  What a cookie.  I have been craving these for awhile.  They somehow take me right back to my childhood.  They are so delicious and buttery with a slight tang from the Cream of Tartar.  Perfect with a glass of milk.  Yummy.  I'm sure most people have some rendition of the Snickerdoodle recipe, but if you have never tried them, you really should. They are delicious.

1 cup shortening (I used unsalted butter), but I have seen some recipes that say they get better results with 1/2 cup vegetable shortening and 1/2 cup butter.

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon of salt (if using salted butter, you do not need to add this ingredient)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

4 Tablespoons sugar

Beat shortening, sugar and eggs in mixer until light and fluffy.  Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.  Stir flour mixture into shortening mixture until well combined.  This dough is very soft, so resist the temptation to add more flour.  Cover dough and chill for 1 hour. 

Mix the cinnamon and 4 Tablespoons of sugar together in a small bowl.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll dough into 2 inch balls and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture until well coated.  Place on greased cookie sheet and press down on dough ball with

fork to make a criss-cross pattern.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Watch carefully.  You will lose the delicious chewiness of these cookies if they are over-baked.  They will puff up in the oven quite a bit.  When the edges have set and are slightly golden, remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet.  They will fall when removed from oven, but that is what they are supposed to do.  

Note:  In my effort to try to justify eating way too many of these cookies in one sitting, I did tweak the amount of butter and sugar and found that they still turned out beautifully.  So, if you would like to decrease the butter and sugar, I did have success with about 3/4 cup unsalted butter and  1 cup sugar.  Those are the only changes I made, and the cookies were still wonderful, but they were slightly puffier and not quite as chewy. The picture above was a batch with the reduced amounts to give you an idea of how they will look.