Perfection – Hive and Nest

Cookies are my thing. I can do cakes pretty well, and my pies are decent too. But cookies are where it’s at for me. I love the relative ease of cookies. Some are complicated, but most are a two-bowl affair that can be in the oven in less than fifteen minutes. They’re quick to bake and rarely is decoration involved. It’s almost always faster to make a batch of cookies than it is to drive to the store to buy some; which is why it shocks me that people actually pay money for store-bought cookies (although I do love Oreos. And Nutter Butters. Those tiny round ones.)

When it comes to making cookies, I like to have the perfect recipe. I don’t want to experiment or tinker with ingredients. I want to know exactly what to do, end of story. 

Everyone, including me, needs snickerdoodles in their cookie repertoire. Can you believe that I never even had a snickerdoodle until we made them in Home Ec in 6th grade? Outrageous! But I took one bite of a snickerdoodle–the crispy cinnamony exterior yielding to the soft yet toothsome inside. Not to mention the sweet tinged with a smidgen of tanginess–I was seriously hooked.

I’ve been making these cookies ever since. But I just wasn’t happy with any recipe I tried. Even Cook’s Illustrated, which normally does me right, has a lousy recipe. This is the problem: snickerdoodles taste much better with butter. But butter makes a cookie too flat a lot of the time. And in Jennie’s Cookie Universe flat cookies are a gigantic no-no. I think they are the sign of either a poor recipe or a sloppy baker.  If you buy a snickerdoodle at a bakery they are usually nice and thick, but the reason is because they are made entirely with shortening which holds its shape better. Ew.  Even butter-flavored shortening is gross, if you ask me.

I was left with no other option than to make up my own recipe.  I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that creating a new recipe drives me a little batty.*  It’s more science than my feeble brain can handle. Not to mention frustrating.  But I finally achieved success.

I like to call this recipe, modestly, The Perfect Snickerdoodle (if by some chance you’ve never made these, you must have cream of tarter. It’s a deal breaker.) 1 1/2 tsp. cream of tarter (Plus cinnamon-sugar in a little bowl for rolling the cookies.  You already know how to make this, right?) Combine sugar, butter, shortening, vanilla and eggs.  Mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour, cream of tarter, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed ingredients and mix well. Shape dough into 1-2″ balls (about the size of ping-pong balls). Roll in cinn-sugar mixture. If possible line your baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place cookies 3″ apart and bake at 375º for 9-11 minutes (better to underbake than overbake!)  Remove from the cookie sheet immediately. These taste great warm, but I like them better after they’ve cooled down and are chewier.

I happen to have three dozen of these on hand because I was supposed to make them for the teachers at the Middle School Cookie Exchange.  Being both overzealous and a ding-a-ling I thought the cookies were supposed to be made on November 12th.  But no. I realized after I’d made them that they are actually for a party on December 12. Way to go, Jennie!

Like all cookies, the best time for making these is on a Sunday evening when nothing else is going on. Preferably, eat these for dinner.  If it makes you feel guilty, then make sure you have a big glass of milk and a banana.  If that isn’t a great meal, then I don’t know what is. 

*Currently I’m working on a coffee cake/crumb cake. There are 10 million coffee cake recipes but none of them are just right. It especially needs to be ready fast. My recipe is almost complete; I’m just tweaking the topping. I’m also working on an almond raspberry sugar cookie which has brought me nothing but grief. I’ve had to shelve it for a while, it was tormenting me so.