Snickerdoodles

When you eat salads for dinner, you can have a cookie for dessert. It's all about balance, right? 

It rained ALL. DAY. LONG. on Sunday. Buckets of rain pouring down from the typically Carolina blue skies and although it was much needed, it made for an extremely lazy day at home. Something about a dark rainy day almost always calls for a treat, obvi.  Snickerdoodles to the rescue! I love the sugary crisp cinnamon coating of a giant Snickerdoodle with a center that still has just the right amount of chew. As I searched for a recipe, I noticed that so many of them called for shortening- yuck! I knew that there had to be an alternative and luckily, I came across a recipe on Smitten Kitchen that had a basic ingredients list.

Cinnamon and chocolate are equals in my book. I must say that these cookies just may give my beloved New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie a run for their money.

Snickerdoodles
recipe from Smitten Kitchen

2 and 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
16 Tbsp. or 2 sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1 and 3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, with one rack in the top third and one rack in the bottom third. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat, and set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter and 1 and 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients and beat until combined. Chill dough for at least one hour or up to overnight.

Once dough has chilled, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Using an ice cream scoop, form balls of the dough (about the size of a small golf ball) and roll in the cinnamon and sugar. Place cookies about two inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake until the cookies are set in the center and begin to crack, 10-12 minutes. If you are cooking more than one sheet at a time, rotate after 5 minutes. (I cooked 6 to a sheet, one sheet at a time in the center of the oven). Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to the rack. 

Store in an airtight container for up to a week.