Easy and Delicious Snickerdoodles

Easy and delicious, Snickerdoodles are great all year round, but they’re especially lovely at Christmas time. I’m not entirely sure why, but I know that it’s true and I don’t question it.

These are super easy to make, coming together in a snap, and they’re the perfect cookie to start your big baking days off with, because you can work on other things while the dough chills.

Ingredients Needed

Butter

Sugar

Eggs

All-purpose flour

Cream of tartar

Baking soda

Salt

Cinnamon

We’re kicking off some holiday baking over the next few weeks here at Sara’s Tiny Kitchen, and we’re starting with one of my favorite cookies of all time!

Recipe Notes

Snickerdoodles have basically all of the elements of a sugar cookie, but the cream of tartar is what adds that little boost of flavor that we all know is the backbone of a traditional snickerdoodle.

Flavor: these are traditional cookies with no extra flavorings, but they do have that little extra oomph of tang that’s provided by the cream of tartar.

Texture: the cookies are thick and chewy with a delicious crunch from the cinnamon sugar coating.

Ease: these are super easy to make. You just mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, then let it chill. Scoop the dough out in even amounts, roll into a ball, and then coat the ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture. You’ll end up with perfectly round cookies every time!

Expert Tips and Tricks:

The cookies will and should look a little underdone when you take them out of the oven. This is totally normal and is what you want. They continue to firm up as they sit on the tray, and slightly underbaking them is what keeps them soft.

If you forget to set your butter out, you can follow these steps to soften it quickly.

Boil a pot of water and place a wrapped stick of butter on a plate, standing up on its end.

Once the water is boiling, pour some of it in a water glass, and let the glass sit for 3 minutes to get really hot.

Pour the water out, and place the glass over the stick of butter, and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Repeat until the butter is fully softened. This will get you pretty softened butter in about 20 minutes total.

If you don’t have cream of tartar, you can instead use 2 teaspoons of baking powder in place of BOTH the cream of tartar and baking soda. It will affect the final taste and texture of the cookie just a little bit, but they will still be absolutely delicious.

How to Prep Ahead

The cookie dough needs to rest in the fridge for at least two hours before baking but can rest for up to 24-36 hours without any adverse baking reactions. So, if you wanted to, you could make the dough ahead of time and cross a thing off of your list. I typically use that chilling time to work on getting other doughs started.

Storage Tips

Store the leftover cookies in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 3-4 days or in the fridge for up to a week.

Freezer Instructions:

To freeze the dough, complete all the steps through rolling the chilled dough into balls and coating them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Then place the dough balls on a baking tray lined with parchment and place the tray in the freezer for 1 hour. After the hour is up, you can place all the dough balls in a freezer bag and freeze for up to two months. You can bake the cookies from frozen – just add 2-4 minutes to the baking time.