I was so enamored with the Oatmeal Scotchies recipe I tried from Mindy Segal's Cookie Love that I decided to keep baking from the cookbook. Sticking to the category of cookies that can be baked immediately after making the dough, I decided to try her snickerdoodle recipe. Segal offers several infused sugar alternatives to the traditional cinnamon-sugar coating, including violet sugar, lavender sugar, cocoa nib sugar, citrus sugar, rose sugar, and vanilla sugar. But she says you can't go wrong no matter what coating you choose, which is why this recipe has the mouthful of a name, "'Any Which Way But You Will Never Lose' Snickerdoodles."
I love snickerdoodles because of the cinnamon sugar, so I stuck with the traditional approach. To make the dough, you cream softened butter with sugar and a bit of brown sugar; add eggs and vanilla; and add the dry ingredients (flour, cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda) all at once. You scoop the dough into balls, coat each ball with cinnamon sugar, and bake. (Incidentally, I used a #50 scoop and got 51 cookies, so this recipe -- like the Oatmeal Scotchies -- also produced almost exactly a quart of dough, making it a breeze to calculate yields if you use a numbered scoop.)
I thought that the cookies were rather light in color, and it turns out the pale color was because of the low ratio of cinnamon to sugar in the coating. The coating has two teaspoons of cinnamon and one-half cup of sugar, or a 1:12 ratio. In contrast, my current favorite snickerdoodle recipe from Baked Elements has a coating that includes 4 teaspoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of sugar, or a 4:9 ratio.
This cookie was fine, but it didn't wow me. It tasted like a rich and chewy butter cookie with a bit of cinnamon. I think I would have liked the cookies more if they had more cinnamon, but regardless, I don't think they can beat the Baked Elements snickerdoodle with brown butter. I am tempted to try this cookie with a different sugar coating; the citrus sugar (with zest of orange, lemon, grapefruit, and lime) would likely be my first choice.
Maybe this cookie will never lose, but I'm not prepared to declare it a winner, either -- at least, not yet!
Recipe: "'Any Which Way But You Will Never Lose' Snickerdoodles" from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Brown Butter Snickerdoodles," September 29, 2013.
I love snickerdoodles because of the cinnamon sugar, so I stuck with the traditional approach. To make the dough, you cream softened butter with sugar and a bit of brown sugar; add eggs and vanilla; and add the dry ingredients (flour, cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda) all at once. You scoop the dough into balls, coat each ball with cinnamon sugar, and bake. (Incidentally, I used a #50 scoop and got 51 cookies, so this recipe -- like the Oatmeal Scotchies -- also produced almost exactly a quart of dough, making it a breeze to calculate yields if you use a numbered scoop.)
This cookie was fine, but it didn't wow me. It tasted like a rich and chewy butter cookie with a bit of cinnamon. I think I would have liked the cookies more if they had more cinnamon, but regardless, I don't think they can beat the Baked Elements snickerdoodle with brown butter. I am tempted to try this cookie with a different sugar coating; the citrus sugar (with zest of orange, lemon, grapefruit, and lime) would likely be my first choice.
Maybe this cookie will never lose, but I'm not prepared to declare it a winner, either -- at least, not yet!
Recipe: "'Any Which Way But You Will Never Lose' Snickerdoodles" from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Brown Butter Snickerdoodles," September 29, 2013.
Comments