Cinnamon Sugar Snickerdoodle Cookies – Crispy edges and chewy centers make these strangely named cookies perfectly delicious!
The Idea:
Cinnamon Sugar Snickerdoodle Cookies are perfectly simple and delicious. The cookie dough is rolled in cinnamon sugar and baked just until the edges are crisp, but the insides are still chewy. There is no real consensus on why this cookie has such an odd name. Some people claim it’s a corruption of a German word, others that it was named in New England and is just a whimsical name that is fun to say. The snickerdoodle is the state cookie of Connecticut after all! (Who knew states had official cookies?)
To increase the chewiness of the cookie, I decided to use melted instead of softened butter, and a whole egg plus an egg yolk instead of two whole eggs.
The Ingredients:
There aren’t a lot of ingredients for snickerdoodles, so they come together really quickly. The one ingredient you might wonder about is the cream of tartar. What exactly is it? Cream of tartar is an acidic byproduct of wine making. It’s a powder that forms in the bottom of the wine barrels- strange, right? Who was the first person who thought, I’m going to take that white powder from that wine barrel and add it to what I’m baking? A true innovator I guess! Before commercial baking powder was available, cream of tartar was commonly used in baking recipes in conjunction with baking soda. It reacts with the baking soda and gives a rise to what you’re baking.
Cream of tartar is always used when making snickerdoodles. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can make regular sugar cookies and roll them in cinnamon sugar to make snickerdoodles. You need the cream of tartar! I’m being dramatic, but it does lend a subtle acidity and underlying flavor that you will miss if you don’t use it.
The Preparation:
As with most cookies, you’ll combine the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients separately, and finally mix them together to make the cookie batter. Because we’re using melted butter, we can skip the typical step of creaming the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer. Instead simply whisk the melted butter and sugar until combined and smooth, and then add the rest of the wet ingredients.
Once the cookie dough is combined, I like to use a medium cookie scoop to make the size of the cookies really consistent. Roll each scoop of the dough in your hands to make a ball, then place into a bowl of delicious cinnamon sugar topping and coat liberally. Once you have the cookie dough balls on your baking sheet, you can use the bottom of a glass to slightly flatten the dough. As a last step I like to sprinkle some extra cinnamon sugar on the tops of the cookies.
Make sure you don’t overbake the snickerdoodles. If you do, the consistency won’t be quite right. You want them to be set, with the edges slightly browned. It will only take 7-8 minutes until you’ve got a delicious snickerdoodle cookie in your hot little hands!
The Payoff:
A giant stack of Cinnamon Sugar Snickerdoodle Cookies is your reward! Really, you are going to want to eat an entire stack.
These snickerdoodles are a great addition to your holiday baking line-up, everybody loves them! They also freeze well, so you can make them a few weeks in advance and then just thaw them on your countertop for a few hours before serving. Embrace the odd name and bake some snickerdoodles today!
Cinnamon Sugar Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Yield: 4 dozen 1x
Description
Crispy edges and chewy centers make these strangely named cinnamon sugar cookies perfectly delicious!
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 1/2 cups of flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup of butter (2 sticks), melted and slightly cooled
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 cup milk, I used 2%, but you can also use whole milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
Topping
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon (or more to your taste)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with either parchment paper or silpat mats.
- Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping in a wide, shallow bowl and set aside.
- Mix the dry ingredients, the flour through the salt, in a large mixing bowl.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the melted butter and sugar until smooth and the sugar is dissolved. Whisk in the whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla.
- Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and combine well into a thick dough.
- Using a medium sized cookie scooper (about 1 1/2 tablespoons), scoop portions of dough and roll into balls in your hands.
- Roll the dough into the cinnamon sugar mixture and make sure they are liberally coated. Place on a baking sheet about two inches apart. I fit 8 cookies on each baking sheet.
- Using the bottom of a glass, slightly flatten the dough balls into rounds. Then sprinkle additional cinnamon sugar on top, if desired.
- Bake for 7-9 minutes until cookies are set and edges are slightly browned. Do not over bake!
- Let cookies cool for a minute or two on the baking sheet, then move to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in tupperware at room temperature for two days, or freeze.
