Snacker Snocker Snucker: Snickerdoodles!

On Saturday night we had tickets to the symphony for "Bugs Bunny on Broadway"--a concert where they show Bugs Bunny cartoons on a big screen and the symphony plays the score of the cartoon. It was SO much fun, and I went around all day Sunday singing, "What's up, Doc?" I think maybe this is what inspired me to make Snickerdoodles on Sunday evening, some sort of connection between a childhood pleasure, the Saturday morning cartoons, and a favorite childhood taste, the one, the only, the snickerdoodle!

But before I share my snackable sneak-between-meals snickerdoodle recipe I have to digress for a minute, and ponder the name of the snickerdoodle. At some point in the era of cookie prehistory did someone snicker at the squiggly lines on the tops of the cookies created by the cracking sugar crust? Or did someone just doodle away one day and produce the recipe, which made someone else snicker, because after all, who puts cream of tartar in a cookie? Or because the cookies just taste so good that people snicker joyfully as they eat them?

My encyclopedia of word and phrase origins tells me that 'snicker' is a word meaning 'to laugh', originally from an Essex dialect of English, but sadly there is no entry for snickerdoodle. According to wikipedia though, it might be a corruption of the German word Schneckennudeln, which means "snail dumpling". Since "snail dumpling" sounds like a horrifying creation to me, I think I'll stick with my own etymological ideas.



These cookies are pretty standard as far as snickerdoodles go, I found three different recipes on allrecipes.com that were actually all the same, so I decided it sounded like a nice safe bet. You mix up the dough, which is soft and a little fluffy, roll the dough into little balls, and then the roll the little balls in cinnamon sugar until they're brown and sparkly. After a few minutes in the oven they come out puffy and pale, but after a minute or so out of the oven they deflate and turn a little bit golden brown, leaving a thin, chewy, melt-in-your mouth cookie with the distinctive tang of tartar balanced by the spiciness of cinnamon and the sweetness of sugar. I think maybe it's the faint tartar aftertaste that lingers in your mouth that makes it so impossible to eat just one cookie, because you keep wanting to recreate that irresistible taste in your mouth!

Snickerdoodles
from allrecipes.com

1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375. In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, and set aside. Cream together the shortening and sugar until well-blended, then beat in the eggs. Add the flour mixture to the shortening and egg mixture in small increments until all ingredients are well-incorporated and the dough is smooth and fluffy. In a small, steep-sided bowl combine the cinnamon and remaining sugar. Roll small pieces of dough between your palms until they make walnut sized balls, then roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar. Place the cookies at least an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake for 7-8 minutes at 375 degrees F. The cookies will be quite puffy and still pale in color when you remove them from the oven. Let them sit on the pan for another minute or two until they deflate, then remove them to wire racks to cool completely.

Once they're cool, store them in an airtight container, preferably with a slice of bread or apple to keep them moist. Keep changing the bread or apple daily, and the cookies should last for up to a week, unless of course you eat a dozen or two while you're baking them, which is easy to do when they're warm and fragrant! This recipe makes about 65-70 cookies depending on the exact size though, so you should have at least a few left.