Baking Baking Baking Baking
This is the time of year when I fill the fridge with eggs and butter and then turn on some music and bake nonstop for a weekend, then disguise my exhaustion at work by shoving cookies at everyone. I love cookie season. Speaking of, my oven has been leaking a little more gas every time I use it, probably time to think about repair/replace. Or I could just open another window and save that money for more flour and baking soda, gas leaks are nbd right? ...Good advice friends, this is some good advice. Giving away home-baked things has sort of fallen out of favor because people can do terrible things and trust is difficult when it is health on the line, but there is probably a world of people who know you well enough to trust that you have decent kitchen hygiene, at least for baked things. So. If you happen to know someone, and they aren't diabetic or gluten-free or paleo, they probably won't mind being handed cookies every day until January.
Lets start with the non-season-specific snickerdoodle, commonly described as a type of shortbread but that is wrong!!! Shortbreads are buttery and flaky and have a sort of crunchy hardness. Snickerdoodles might be buttery but they are tender and chewy, almost undercooked but not quite. They tend to keep a lot of moisture so I'll freeze them if storing them for more than a few days, but since they aren't crunchy they don't suffer from the freeze-defrost. Oh, also, a friend of a friend in a country (like Uruguay) where it is legal for personal use found that these cookies are basically perfect with half butter and half-cannabutter (but they said to wear gloves for the dough-rolling part), the small delicious size make them an easy vehicle and the flavors match. They are delicious though, so don't forget to make a bunch of regular ones for when you want to eat more than one. Sorry I don't have any pictures, I'll take some the next time I make these. I got this recipe from GloriaAnn on Food.com in 2002, and haven't had any reason to mess with it.
"The Best Snickerdoodles I Have Ever Eaten"
Ingredients
- 1/2 c butter, softened
- 1/2 c granulated sugar (I use about 1tbsp less, I like things less sweet)
- 1/3 c brown sugar (lightly packed, as usual for brown sugar)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 c flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (don't leave this out! it is necessary.)
Topping
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Directions
- In a large bowl cream butter and sugars at high speed with an electric blender
- add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth (ooh, raw eggs, sorry no batter-snacks)
- in another bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar and stir with a fork or a wisk or something
- pour dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well (by hand)
- Preheat oven to 300 F (yep, not a typo) while you let the dough rest (covered) in a fridge for 30-60 min (good time to make some other cookie dough to store for later. oatmeal chocolate chip?)
- Mix topping ingredients together in a small bowl
- When dough is rested take a spoonful (2 tablespoons-ish or a little less) of dough and roll it into a ball
- roll the dough in the topping mixture, then put it on a greased cookie sheet. (The recipe says to press them onto the cookie sheet but I don't remember doing that. You'd better make 2 batches and see which way works better for you) repeat to cover the cookiesheets
- Bake cookies 10-12 minutes, NO MORE
- Cookies may seem undercooked but that is ok, that is the magic.
- Don't roll your dough into too big of a ball; they ma not turn out in that much time if you do that
- it happened to me
- lol
- (that was in the original recipe)
- If the cookies come out weird (too crunchy, too underdone) then please try again. But if they are underdone you can toaster-oven them a bit later
- last note from the original recipe: It's a very good cookie, its just all a matter of getting the cooking time right
Friendly reminder, too much butter and sugar will make you feel gross, even in this most perfect vehicle for butter and sugar, so go for a nice walk to let your body know you are still connected to it, and give lots of cookies away to people you know. Then everybody is happy, you are less stiff, and you have room to make more cookies :)
