Snickerdoodles
Soft, cracked sugar cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar, with a distinctive tang from cream of tartar. Without the tartar they are just cinnamon cookies, and the difference is immediately obvious.
Photograph credit: Snickerdoodles by EvanProdromou · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Don't Make These Mistakes
Take them out when the centres still look slightly wet. They firm up as they cool and this is what keeps them chewy.
Cream of tartar has no real substitute here. Baking powder gives you a different cookie.
Coat them heavily. The cinnamon sugar is half the point.
Photograph credit: Freshly baked snickerdoodle sugar cookies · CC0 1.0 · Rawpixel
Cooking Snickerdoodles
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Whisk the flour, cream of tartar, bicarbonate and salt together.
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Beat the butter and sugar for 3 minutes until pale and fluffy, scraping the bowl twice.
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Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
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Add the dry ingredients and mix on low just until no flour is visible.
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Chill the dough for 30 minutes — long enough to firm it, not so long that it hardens.
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Heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F and line two baking sheets.
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Mix the coating sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl.
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Roll the dough into 40 g balls, then roll each generously in the cinnamon sugar until thickly coated.
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Space them 6 cm apart and bake 9 to 11 minutes until puffed, cracked across the top and still soft in the centre. They will look underdone.
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Cool on the tray for 5 minutes — they finish setting there — then transfer to a rack.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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What's Going On Here
Cream of tartar does two jobs: it provides the faint sour note that defines the flavour, and its acidity inverts some of the sugar, which keeps the cookies soft and chewy rather than crisp. It also reacts with the bicarbonate to give the rapid rise and collapse that creates the cracked surface.
After You've Cooked It
Keeps 5 days in an airtight tin. Dough balls freeze 3 months; bake from frozen adding 2 minutes.
What to Serve Alongside
- A glass of cold milk
- Coffee or chai
- Vanilla ice cream, as a sandwich
Common Questions About Snickerdoodles
How long does Snickerdoodles take to make?
20 minutes of preparation and 12 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of chilling, so allow 1 hour 2 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 24.
Snickerdoodles Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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