Snickerdoodles

I felt a little proud when I pulled these cookies out of the oven. My mood improved when they were actually soft and palatable. I became ecstatic when I managed to take a good-picture-in-natural-light photo shoot and so now I just have to share them. 

I will be perfectly honest. Snickerdoodles aren't my favorite. I like me the choco-late chip variety myself. (I also find them to be really hard to work with - sticky sticky messes - that turn out reaaaalllly flat and hard or like sugar bomb bread balls, which happens when I try to counter the sticky with a little extra flour. Anyway, back to why I made these...)

So...I'm almost out of butter (this recipe does have shortening in it) and I don't have any real chocolate chips (white don't really count) so what else can you make when the Elders are coming for dinner and you want something to sweeten the deal? Snickerdoodles. And they just so happen to be one of Erik's favorite cookie, which he hardly ever asks for because he knows they are not my cup of tea. So win, win, win, and win. Winners all around!

This particular shortening snickerdoodle recipe has been made once before in my house with limited palatability and thus allows me to give you a little tip. Tip: Shortening has a shelf life and it gets old and starts to smell funny and will make your cookies taste gross. So keep that shortening fresh - like less than a year old, ok? Ok. Now you know.

My taste tester...She approved.

Good.

Try them. (But make sure to share so you don't eat them all yourself, accidentally, even though you don't really like them.)

Snickerdoodles

Yield: 2 dozen (at least)

Dough:
1 stick (8 tbsp) butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 C shortening
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs

2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt

Coating:
1/4 C granulated sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 F. (My oven is on the too hot side - something I just discovered after a year of using it. I baked these babies at 350 F for 11 minutes. Just to be honest, true, and real with you!)

With an electric mixer, beat the butter, shortening, and sugar together until light and fluffly, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and beat until well mixed.

In a separate bowl mix together the cream of tartar, baking soda, flour, and salt.

Stir the dry ingredient flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture until flour is just incorporated.

In a shallow dish or bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon to coat dough with.

Form into 1.5 inch balls, roll in cinnamon sugar coating and place on a lightly sprayed/silpat-ed/parchment paper-ed (you pick) baking sheet. They will spread a lot. If you want them to be perfectly round, you probably will want to space them farther than a normal cookie with fewer on the sheet. If you don't care that they run into each other then do a normal 3 X 4 placement.

Bake for 9 - 11 minutes until golden brown around the edges and slightly puffed in the middle. They flatten after removing them from the oven. Let sit 2 minutes on baking sheet, then remove them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.


From Mel's Kitchen Cafe - Classic Snickerdoodles

Food Disappointment

Do you ever have disappointing food days? You know - you find that perfect recipe. The picture looks good. You can just imagine how delightful it will taste when it is all said and done. You cook or bake exactly as the recipe instructs. O! It is going to be the best thing ever!!

After heavy anticipation you open the oven door and WHAMO! disappointment hits. Your cookie, cake, bread, casserole, cinnamon rolls, soup, etc. etc. etc. is the biggest failure of the day. And then you feel sad, and never want to cook again and wonder why you just spent those however many minutes in the kitchen making your masterpiece, only to have it FAIL!

Oh my achin' back!

That happened to me. Just in case you were wondering.

I saw this recipe on the back of the Kroger graham cracker box (that should have been my first warning - I don't really trust package recipes).

Irresistible Graham Cracker Cookies.

Mmm. Perfect! They just so happened to have the same ingredients as Grandpa Nelsen's Da...ng Good Cookies (censored for the sensitive) or Magic Cookie Bars. But they were cookie form! Good, chewy, round delicious cookie form! I could only just imagine what was awaiting me through the door of the recipe!! I also thought they would be the perfect recipe to share on this blog!

But my imagination failed me, for instead of expecting the best, I should have been anticipating the worse. I pretty much thought my night was over when I pulled these out of the oven.

Flat. Too sweet. Weird with the graham as the majority of the flour. 

So let this be a lesson to all. Actually there are several lessons. 

1. Package recipes probably won't work the first time.

2. Store brand packages are probably trying to recreate the name brand package's recipes in a suspicious form. (The Magic Cookie Bars recipe appeared on the Keebler box of graham cracker crumbs that I bought.)

3. Sometimes people have bad days in the kitchen and the food turn out not very photogenic.

4. Margarine that has been in the freezer for 8 months may not be the best ingredient to use in baked goods. :)

Fortunately I didn't have to throw them away. My husband, daughter, and church peeps did me a favor and ate them on Sunday (sorry if you are reading this now and ate one).