Thursday 17 November 2011

Snickerdoodle Fun

'Snickerdoodle' has to be one of my favourite words ever. How much fun can one word be? What does it even mean? I really couldn't tell you how this word came about but it isn't related to a Snickers bar, nor is there any drawing involved. It's simply a delicious sugary cinnamon cookie – a wonderful soft cookie with crisp edge to bite into.

I was introduced to these wonders when a former colleague came over from the US a couple years ago. She baked and we scoffed our faces. Just like that.

I've made them many times since then and now have tried to mix it up a bit. I still love the original sugar and cinnamon version, but then I decided to try a chocolate version too. Adding some cocoa powder to the mix worked quite well. I even added some chocolate to the middle of some of them for a bit of added flavour and texture.

Snickerdoodles

The recipe

There are several variations of this recipe about, but this is how I like to make mine.

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
125g light brown caster sugar
25g brown soft sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt

Method

  1. Cream the butter and sugar until soft then add the beaten egg and vanilla paste and beat till smooth.
  2. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients and leave in fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
  3. Roll into balls the size of a walnut and lay out on a baking tray leaving space to spread. Leaving the mixture in the fridge allows the balls to keep shape while baking instead of spreading out too much.
  4. Bake for approximately 12 minutes at 160°C.

Alternative methods

  • Roll the balls in some granulated sugar before placing on baking tray for a simple sugary and buttery cookie.
  • Roll the balls in a tbsp of granulated sugar and a tsp of cinnamon before placing on the baking tray. These are the original method and delicious and moorish.
  • I added in a heaped teaspoon of chocolate powder to about a quarter of the dough and rolled the mixture around some chocolate ganache for a nice chocolately centre for each cookie.
  • I also tried the chocolately centre for the plain sugared versions.

Happy baking!

No comments:

Post a Comment