Snickerdoodles!

During TAKS week, I went on a baking binge.  I love my junior homeroom kiddos, and since there is no guarantee I'll get them back next year, I wanted to make them cookies for every day of TAKS testing.  Since there were three days, that meant three different kinds of cookies!  I made them white chocolate chip cookies and regular chocolate chip cookies.  And I made them snickerdoodles!

The ingredients:
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
1 cup of sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


As always, the very first thing I do when I'm baking is preheat the oven--for this recipe to 375 degrees.  I also generally double this recipe--I never have a problem finding people to eat these snickerdoodles!

The next thing I do is melt the butter in the microwave.  I then measure out the sugar, as well as the cream of tartar and baking soda.  I put all of this into the blender, and mix it on a low-medium speed until combined.

Next I get the eggs (remember, I double the recipe, so there are two eggs!) and measure the vanilla.  I crack the eggs straight into the blender and the pour in the vanilla.  I start the blender back up at low-medium speed until the eggs and vanilla are thoroughly combined.

Now comes the flour.  I measure it out and add it to the mix.  I start the blender out on low so that the flour ends up mixed into the batter instead of on my :-).  Once the flour is mostly mixed in, I bump the mixer up to low-medium to make sure that the flour is thoroughly mixed in.

Now the dough is done!  The recipe calls for a refrigeration period of one hour.  This supposedly makes the dough easier to handle, but it also DRIES IT OUT.  So, I don't do it.  I go ahead and move straight on to the next part of making the snickerdoodles!

First I grease up a cookie sheet.  Next, I measure out the remaining amounts of sugar and ground cinnamon into a regular bowl and thoroughly mix them together.

Now comes the wonderfully fun and messy part!  Form the dough into balls of approximately 1 inch in diameter and then drop them into the bowl containing the sugar-cinnamon mixture.  Then roll the dough ball around in the sugar-cinnamon until it's thoroughly coated.

Once the dough ball is sufficiently coated, place it on the cookie sheet.  Place the cookies at least an inch apart.  I then use whatever might remain of the sugar-cinnamon mixture to dust the dough balls on the sheet.  Often times, there's not much of the mixture left, at which point the cookies simply don't get dusted.  Once I am happy with how the cookies are situated on the cookie sheet, I pop them in the oven.

Each batch bakes for approximately 10 minutes.  Because of the color of the dough, as well as the extra color from the sugar-cinnamon mix, it is difficult to tell when the edges are browning.  My oven burns a little hot, so with this in mind, I cook the first batch for 9 minutes and then check how they're doing.  If they are done, then I bake for 9 minutes, but if not, I keep going until the 10 minute mark.

Once the cookies are done, I place them on a serving tray or platter to cool.  Each batch makes about 36 cookies, so doubling it makes about 70.  These cookies get the most compliments of anything I bake, and whenever my husband or I take them to work, we never bring any home!