Fall Bucket List: Snickerdoodles

While “saving the best for last” is overly cliched, it’s exactly what I’ve done with the last installment of #FallBucketList series.

Cookies have always been a favorite treat of mine, both to bake and to eat, because they’re relatively simple to make, bake quickly, and are easily transported.  Snickerdoodles, which are a type of sugar cookie coated in cinnamon-sugar, are my favorite kind of cookie to make in the fall.  The way they crack when they bake gives them a ‘wow factor’ that’s guaranteed to impress those you share them with and their spicy flavor pairs well with fall favorites like apple cider (try our hot toddy recipe!) and hot chocolate.

Snickerdoodles

[Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart Living]

Equipment:

- Set of dry measuring cups
- Set of dry measuring spoons
- A medium sized mixing bowl
- A large sized mixing bowl
- An electric mixer
- A plastic spatula
- A wooden spoon
- A teaspoon
- A small, shallow bowl
- 2-4 cookie sheets
- Parchment paper
- 2 wire cooling racks

Optional Equipment:

- Small ice cream scoop

Ingredients:

- 2 ¾ cups of all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons of cream of tarter
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- ½ cup of unsalted butter
- ½ cup of shortening or lard
- 1 ¾ cups of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature

Ready, Set, Bake!

1)  Preheat your oven to 400°F, making sure to move one rack to the top third of the oven and the other to the bottom third.  Trace your cookie sheets out onto your parchment paper, then cut out the tracings to create liners for your cookie sheets.  Repeat until you have enough liners to make 4 dozen cookies (between 4 and 6 tracings depending on the size of your cookie sheets).

2)  In your medium sized mixing bowl, combine the flour, cream of tarter, baking soda, and salt.  Set the bowl aside.

3)  In your large sized mixing bowl, beat the butter, shortening/lard, and 1 ½ cups of the sugar together with your electric mixer set to medium speed until the mixture is fluffy and no longer grainy.

4)  Use your spatula to scrape the butter mixture down the sides of the bowl, add eggs, and beat the mixture until combined.

5)  Add the dry mix to the butter mixture and mix with you wooden spoon until the ingredients are fully combined.

6)  In your small, shallow bowl, stir together the remaining ¼ cup of sugar and the cinnamon.  Make sure that this mixture is well combined and uniform in color.

7)  Using your small ice cream scoop or teaspoon, form uniformly sized balls of dough.  Roll these balls of dough in the cinnamon-sugar and place them on your parchment lined cookie sheets.  Keep in mind that snickerdoodles tend to spread quite a bit as they bake, so you may need to reduce the number of cookies per sheet from the standard 12 to 10 or 8, depending on the size of your cookie sheets.  (The recipe should yield about 4 dozen cookies.)

8)  Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes or until they set and start to crack.  Rotate the cookie sheets about halfway through the baking time.  Once you’ve removed the cookies from the oven, allow them to cool on the cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before moving them to your wire cooling racks to allow them to cool fully.  The cookies will keep in an airtight container or Ziploc bag for up to a week… if they last that long.

What are your all time favorite cookies?  Feel free to share the recipe below,  a link, or share a photo of your home baked goodies on , hashtag #SLbakes!

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