Snickerdoodles without cream of tartar

Snickerdoodles (Photograph by Adrian)

So, the other night we were watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay because he’s the man, and they were doing chocolate chip cookies. It was 9PM, right about the time we start craving a tasty treat, but alas, I had no chocolate chips! Terrible, I know. I should always have a reserve. Of course, I found out later that I actually had semisweet baking chocolate in the back that would have served for chocolate chunk cookies, but I digress. Anyway, I figured that I could make snickerdoodles with what I had on hand – simple fluffy cookies with cinnamon sugar, right? WRONG. (Well, sort of.)

Turns out that your traditional snickerdoodles have cream of tartar. Honestly, I’ve never used the stuff and have no reason to keep it around, so I thought I was doomed. Luckily, Google + Martha Stewart came to the rescue! I made the cookies as directed and they were perfectly fluffy and tasty and held up really well against milk, both in terms of flavor and dunking them (as Adrian always has to do). Here’s the recipe with my additions in italics, from Martha’s Holiday Cookies 2005.

A couple of notes first: baking them on a Silpat made for much better cookies than a nonstick foil-lined sheet pan (I don’t have parchment paper at the moment, either), and beating the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes until pale and fluffy is absolutely crucial.

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside (if you have a stand mixer, you can do the sifting while the butter and sugar are beating). Put butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.
• Stir together cinnamon and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl. Shape dough into 20 (1 3/4-inch) balls (really easy to do with an ice cream scoop, was about 3/4 of mine); roll in cinnamon sugar. Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper (or a Silpat / silicone baking sheet).
• Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes.