Snickerdoodle Cookies

Snickerdoodles by Amelia

What a name for a cookie, but these cookies are classic in many American homes. And they're quite possibly right up there next to the famous chocolate chip cookie! These are best homemade, and I don't know a single person who hasn't liked these. I'm eating one right now.

I'll share here with you at the bottom of this recipe where you can buy a few of the ingredients in Enschede's city center.

Here is the recipe in metric:

Ingredients:

210 g unsalted butter/ongezouten boter*
300 g sugar granulated
2 eggs
4 g vanilla flavoring/vanille
345 g flour/tarwe bloem
5 g baking soda
6 g cream of tartar
2 g salt

Keep apart, for cookie decoration:
25 g white sugar
5 g ground cinnamon/kaneel

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the butter and 300g sugar until smooth. Stir in the eggs and blend well. Next, stir in the vanilla flavoring. Finally, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar to the mix. Stir the ingredients together well. Best results will come if you mix with an electric hand mixer.

3. After you've completely mixed the cookie dough, put the dough into the refrigerator for 3 to 5 minutes to help it harden slightly. This makes it easier to roll the cookies out and yields better baked cookie results.

4. Roll the dough into balls approximately the size a walnut. Roll in a mixture of 25g sugar and 5g cinnamon. Place 5 cm apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

5. Make sure the oven is at 200°C. Then it's clear to bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned, but importantly they must still be soft.

6. Remove from the oven but leave them on the cookie sheet for about 5 mins. After 5 minutes, remove them from the cookie sheet and allow them to cool on the cooling rack for at least 10 mins. The cookies continue to cook while they cool.

*Special note: It is important to measure out the butter just properly or they will be too dry or too heavy. With trial and error, I have learned to let the butter sit out on the kitchen counter until it's soft, but not melted. Usually this is about 4 hours in the kitchen at room temperature. The packaging of the butter offers a handy tool to show every 50g of butter, precisely. 210g is just slightly more than the 4th 50g mark.

Where to find the ingredients:

All ingredients are found at Albert Heijn except for baking soda and cream of tartar. Do not use the Backin bakpoeder/baking powder made by Dr. Oetker (found with the baking products at Albert Heijn) to substitute. This doesn't help the cookies rise properly.

Toko Tai Wing on De Heurne in the Enschede centrum normally carries Arm & Hammer baking soda and Koepoe-Koepoe brand cream of tartar:
http://www.winkelhartenschede.nl/straten/Deheurne/toko-tai-wing/

If they don't have it in stock, ask them to stock it up! I buy it often from them too and have asked they keep it in stock. The other toko in the center near Action also carries Arm & Hammer and Koepoe-Koepoe products.