Snickerdoodles

For SANTA!  I KNOW HIM!  

I love that movie so much.   It's my favorite.  Smiling is my favorite.  

I don't usually do a ton with Christmas cookies, because we aren't huge dessert people and my mom usually takes care of that, but this year I was teaching a cooking class on desserts, so I made these because they're light-ish and small and cute and DELICIOUS!  

And then no one showed up to the class.  

Whomp.  

That's ok!  More cookies for us.  I like that they're pretty easy, too.  You need butter, sugar, flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, an egg, corn syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon.  The cinnamon is obviously what makes this a snickerdoodle instead of a regular sugar cookie, but the cream of tartar and the corn syrup really add a lot to the soft, chewy texture of the final product.  

First, preheat the oven and mix the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar together in a bowl.  

Then, add the sugar and butter to the bowl of a mixer, and cream them together until they're light and fluffy.  

With the mixer running (or off if you're using a handheld mixer), add the vanilla and the egg.  

Then, add the flour!  In a few batches to prevent flour from going everywhere.  

When everything is combined, the dough will start to pull away from the sides a little bit, and we're ready to form the cookies!  While you prep everything else, stick the dough in the fridge for a few minutes.  

While the dough is cooling, combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon together with your fingers in a bowl, and do whatever you do to get ready to bake cookies.  In my case, silicone liners go on baking sheets and I consume some kind of alcohol before I get my hands all messy.  You get it.  

AND NOW.  Let's get to it.  Take little bits of the chilled dough and roll them into balls.  

Roll the balls (never stops being silly) in the cinnamon sugar mixture, and place them on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  

Use a glass to gently flatten the cookies.  I love this step because it makes the cookies nice and uniform.  

Now we bake!  Just for 5 minutes, then the cookies come out of the oven and will be a little puffy and very soft.  

Let the cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes or a little more, then move them to a baking rack.  They'll deflate and look a little sad, but that's part of the yummy chewy action happening.  

Snickerdoodles!  Easy, really delicious, and not terrible for you if you don't eat too many.  

But of course, as we know, the rule is that a serving size is the number that you can stack on top of each other.  

Right?  

Right.