Snickerdoodles

I have very fond memories of my grandmother making snickerdoodles for my family when I was little. She used the same cookbook that she had been using for years—the Betty Crocker Cookbook, published in the 1960’s. The cover was worn and the binding a little tattered, so she covered it with one of our elementary book covers—a picture of Mickey Mouse, books in hand and schoolhouse in the distance. Whenever I saw that book on the counter, I knew that in time the kitchen would be filled with the delicious smell of cinnamon, sugar and butter.

When I became older, she allowed me to assist her with the basics—rolling the dough into balls, tossing them with cinnamon-sugar, and placing the dough balls on the baking sheet. I would hop around with impatience and glance through the oven glass for the next 10-15 torturous minutes as the smell of cookies wafted throughout the entire house. I could barely contain myself when my grandmother pulled them out of the oven and shooed me away as she placed them on a cooling rack. And when I finally got to bite into each cookie, armed with a tall glass of whole milk… the memory still makes me smile, no matter where I am or how I’m doing.

I stole (borrowed?) that Betty Crocker cookbook from my house my junior year of college, determined to bring that happiness to fellow parishioners at my parish’s bake sale. Hoo boy—that did not go well. It was probably a combination of my ineptitude, the 30-year old oven at my apartment, and the fact that I didn’t adjust the recipe to high altitude (which ties into the first reason). Being in a pinch, I ended up “baking” a brownie mix from a box instead. I tried a few more times to recapture the magic that my grandmother had woven with her snickerdoodles, but even after I made altitude adjustments to the recipe I was still at an impasse.

I started trying recipes that I found online, desperate to figure out where I went wrong and what would work best. And after a few tries, I finally found this recipe on Simply Recipes—and it was perfect. Crispy on the edges, soft on the inside, with just enough cinnamon kick to tickle the taste buds. I’ve made this recipe for my closest friends, for my lovely coworkers, and everyone in between. Out of all the cookie batches I’ve made in the past, this one seems to have the most positive response. And although my taste has moved on (my favorite is oatmeal raisin nowadays), the act of making and baking snickerdoodles will always make me nostalgic for those long-ago days in the kitchen where I’m ten years old again–giggling and rolling dough in cinnamon sugar with my grandmother’s sharp-eyed supervision.

Someday, though… someday I’m going to tackle that dang Better Crocker recipe again, and I’ll finally master it! (I still have the book sitting in my bookshelf… no, I never gave it back. What a bad granddaughter I am!)

Recipe modified from Simply Recipes.