Oh how I remember the days as a child when my mother would spend an entire day baking delicious treats and making tantalizing desserts. Even though my mother was diabetic, that didn’t keep her from whipping some sugar, while flour and crisco together for not only sweet cookies, cakes, and candies, but also calorie laden ones as well.
One of my favorite cookies that she’d make from time to time were snickerdoodles. In our family, and I am sure in many Southern families, crisco was the main staple of desserts. Now crisco didn’t have to be the actual Crisco brand, just any kind of white lard, also known as shortening. Sort of like saying “coke”. Coke down here in Texas isn’t just cola, but also Dr Pepper, Sprite, rootbeer, and any other carbonated beverage. Here we ask what kind of coke do you want. Here we ask what kinds of coke are available. Thus it was the same way with cooking–crisco is any kind of canned solid fat whether it’s of the vegetable or animal variety.
In our kitchen we kept one ingredient on hand always for making snickerdoodles–cream of tartar (pronounced down here as cream of tarter). I never knew what that white powdery stuff was until yesterday when I looked it up online. Cream of tartar is a by product of grape winemaking and is used as a leavening agent to add acidity to a recipe that uses baking soda. It was also the ingredient used to make baking powder before baking powder became widely available.
However, as tradition speaks in my home baking, I still make my snickerdoodles using cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is easy to find and one container will last you a long time. You can find it at most grocery stores, as well as online.
My recipe for snickerdoodles includes a combination of crisco and butter, cream of tartar, as well as a cinnamon sugar coating for cookies that crack perfectly on top as they bake and nearly melt in your mouth. If you can find it, I recommend rolling the raw cookie dough into a combination 1:2 ratio of cinnamon and sparkling sugar crystals which you can find in the baking section of most grocery stores or even the baking section of craft stores that sell cake making supplies, such as Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s, and Micheals.
Traditional Snickerdoodles
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 whole eggs
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup of cinnamon sugar
Cream together in a medium bowl the shortening, butter, and sugar for three minutes on the highest setting your mixer will allow. Add the eggs and continue to cream until the mixture is light yellow and very soft, about three minutes longer.
Sprinkle in the cream of tartar, salt, and the baking soda. Mix on the highest speed possible for one to two minutes or until fully incorporated. Add the flour, all at once, and mix in completely. Dough will be thick.
Roll dough into 1 inch balls using clean, dry hands. Roll into cinnamon sugar mixture and then place onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 F for 8-10 minutes, or until cookies are slightly golden on top. Goes great with a tall glass of milk.
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