Snickerdoodles?


What is your favorite cookie? Chocolate chip? Oreos? All of them? Mine happen to be gingerbread. But if you like sweets, especially cookies, it may seem impossible to try something new.

Now, I've had snickerdoodles before. I would occasionally grab one while waiting in line at the cafeteria. Our high school cafeteria was tiny, half of a basement, and the line for food looped around stairs to the main floor and could stretch all the way to the classroom halls. My favorite lunch was on Wednesdays, chicken parmesan sandwich with either a brownie or snickerdoodle cookie and usually a bottle of water. Simple, but good fuel. But, in all my time baking and eating baked goods I have never made my own snickerdoodles and eaten them fresh out of the oven. So today, while it snowed, thats what I did.

I ended up using my apartment-mate's recipe. After years of trial and error my apartment-mate and her mother settled on this particular one, which they now use every Christmas. We didn't have any cream of tartar so I ended substituting it for double the lemon juice. This cookie dough was one of the softest I've ever made. I was actually concerned that I didn't add enough floor because the texture was just a hair thicker than softened butter. After rolling out balls of this dough (that I'm fairly certain is made out children's hope and dreams) they got rolled, more like tossed, in cinnamon sugar and placed on the baking sheet.

The baking process was more of an adventure than I expected. Butter had dripped onto the bottom of our oven during our last baking escapade and I, apparently, had not cleaned it all up. Now that I'm at the point where I'm ready to start baking it feels more like I'm smoking the cookies. But after 15 minutes of baking the came out soft, golden, and piping hot.

They were perfect! If they weren't slightly squared up from touching in the oven I would have believe they were store bought. The smoky oven didn't effect the flavor one bit. You couldn't really bite into one of these cookies. They were just too soft. The warm, sweet, buttery goodness just fell apart in your mouth. They were rich and silky from the shear amount of butter involved but that richness was cut by the cinnamon so they weren't to heavy to enjoy. I probably ate four as soon as they came out, and it was pure bliss. There is just something magical about eating warm gooey cookies and watching it snow. Eating them fresh like that dragged me back to being six years old on a snow day. My mom would pick up nestle chocolate chip cookie dough on her way home from work and make them for my father and I. Then, cookies would be practically molten, she would make homemade hot chocolate too. I would come inside like a little ice-pop having been playing in the snow an hour or two too long. She would have a blanket in the dryer waiting for me after I took off my snow gear. She would rap me up on the couch and hand me one of those cookies and a mug of hot chocolate with extra whip cream. In those moments I would feel safe and warm and loved.

Having those snickerdoodles take me back to such a happy place was unexpected and really nice. And I believe they were able to do that because they were made with love. Love went into choosing the recipe, love went into baking them and we definitely loved eating them. And it is love that can make of break any prepared food. I know for a fact that we are going to be reusing this recipe quite often in our apartment. And I encourage you to throw a little love into your next meal, and see how much better it tastes.

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