SNICKERDOODLES
Well here we are at Day 41 of Shelter in Place. I got in a bit of a funk this week. I think it is normal to get in a funk and all we can do is to distract ourselves and stay busy… and nothing brings me out of a funk like a good cookie. My BLOG has two key purposes, one to create community during the COVID19 pandemic and hopefully into the future and the other is to leverage my experience over decades of cooking trying different recipes until I found the best one. Well this Snickerdoodle recipe is the best of the best. I have mentioned on multiple occasions that I grew up in a Sicilian household. Both my parents were first generation Americans and Sicilians are very clannish so they grew up under the law of the house. Despite this both my parents were very progressive for their time. I mean…my Mom made toll house cookies when I was a kid and those certainly were not Italian and my Dad always told his daughter she could be whatever she set her mind to be if she put the work in. For this I feel very fortunate. My parents could have made my life miserable but instead they were empathetic to the changing times and changed with them.
Today is the second anniversary of my Mom’s passing. She left us at the age of 93 and I have to give her kudos. Grandma Jo adapted to the times, she gave me rope to enjoy things she never got to and she encouraged trying new things and new foods within reason. I sure do miss her but am grateful that she is not here to experience this pandemic because it would have been torture for her to be stuck in a nursing home without visits from her family. It is a blessing that she is dancing the jitterbug in heaven with my Dad versus being trapped in her memory care facility having the jitters over today’s uncertainties. My Mom really loved sweets and she was always complimenting my baking and especially these Snickerdoodle Cookies. It is interesting that when I went to make these for you on my BLOG that the recipe is on page 425 and Mom passed on 4/25 so there is something special about me making these cookies today. I started making Snickerdoodles in High School during Home Economics (do they still have that?) and later in a High School Club called “The Hostess Club”. I made them for about 18 years until I purchased the Best Recipe CookBook by Cook’s Illustrated in the year 2000. The book is true to its name. Cook’s Illustrated Chef’s cooked and baked 100’s of recipes in their test kitchen until they found the perfect one for each recipe in this cookbook.. I genuinely love Pinterest but honestly this cookbook is a “go to” for me and I have never been steered wrong. The ingredients in Snickerdoodles are relatively common but the combination of them in this particular recipe is genius. I often wondered how they got such a strange name “Snickerdoodle” but when I google it no one really seems to know. Suffice it to say Snickerdoodle means deliciousness in our house.
A couple of things to note that I call out in my video:
The dough is quite soft so do not be discouraged by that. You can make them into balls to roll them in the cinnamon sugar combo without issue.
Whatever you do “do not flatten them” on the cookie sheet. These cookies spread so be sure to provide about 2” between each cookie to accommodate this.
Allow them to cool 3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then move them to a baking rack to finish cooling.
These cookies are hard to stop eating so it is good that the recipe makes only about 36 cookies or I would be in big trouble.
That’s it for now. I highly recommend you try this recipe…your loved ones will Thank You for it! Mangia!
