I love to cook and bake, there is no question about that. I feel like I don't have as much time to cook new things as I do to bake. Obviously, if I have time to actually bake, I probably have time to cook, too, but it's really only on the weekends, week days I just get home too late and am too starving to wait for something new and from scratch.
I want to start blogging about things I bake, even if I have to use photos from the site I got the recipe if I forget to take pictures of my own.
My step-dad loves football, including the terrible Buffalo Bills. I hate football. I never tried to understand it, the plays stop way too frequently to hold my attention. But that's okay. There are plenty of other things to watch or read. Anyway, this past Sunday, my step-dad proposed a new tradition. To start with, foot ball Sunday's my mom either has a munchie spread or cooks something for food. Normally it's munchies but Sunday she made a Taco Casserole. My grandma and I normally go to my mom's house to partake of the delicious goodies.
While Grammy and I were at my mom's on Sunday, my step-dad was disappointed that I didn't bring him more cookies. I made cookies Saturday to take to my sister-in-law's jewelry party and made extra for my mom and Kevin. Apparently he ate the whole dozen I gave them that night! I brought back a Tupperware dish my mom had sent home with goodies in it and he thought I'd brought more cookies. Big disappointment.
Now for the proposed new tradition. Mom, Grammy and I are to bake something every Sunday while he watches football. Wait. What? Then Grammy opened her big mouth and asked if all three of us were supposed to make something different. He said "My, what a great idea!" Great. Thanks, Gram.
Truthfully, I doubt we are going to bake something every Sunday, let alone three somethings every Sunday. If we do, I said I want to start earlier than like 2:30 in the afternoon. I normally get my errands done on Saturday and just sit on my butt on Sunday, I don't want to spend every Sunday running around a kitchen.
We/I made three things this past Sunday. Brownies, Chocolate Snickerdoodles and Pumpkin Bread.
We made the brownies because they were quick and easy and the Pumpkin Bread because my mom had the boxed mix but has shoulder issues so she can't really stir/whisk stuff, so we made it while Grammy and I were there to help. Then I decided to look on my Pinterest Sweets and Treats Board for something to make and saw the Chocolate Snickerdoodles. I clicked the link and the link didn't work! Go figure. So I did a quick google search and came up with a recipe from Food.com posted by SkinnyMinnie.
Yield: 25-30 cookies (see below for personal experience)
Units: US | Metric
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Directions:
1 Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2 Beat 1 1/2 cups of sugar and butter until fluffy.
3 Add vanilla and eggs and mix well.
4 Add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa; mix well.
5 In another bowl mix the 2 Tbs. sugar and cinnamon.
6 Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in cinnamon mixture.
7 Bake for 8-10 min or until set. Immediately remove from cookie sheet.
Read more here.
I don't always follow a recipe exactly. Sometimes my butter isn't completely softened, sometimes I just add everything all in one bowl and mix from there instead of having a wet bowl, a dry bowl and then combining them. This time, however, I did follow the recipe.
I used a small cookie scoop to ensure equal sizes among the cookies. My medium one is a Tablespoon and a Half, I'd estimate that my small one is about a Tablespoon. Regardless, the balls were close to an inch. We got a lot more than 30 cookies out of one batch. We got probably 50-60 and my mom had decided to double the batch so we ended up with 90+ cookies.
This dough is thick. It stayed relatively crumbly even though everything was incorporated. When you rolled it into a ball, everything stuck together and it held it's shape perfectly fine, but at first we were wondering how they'd turn out. So have no fear, if your dough stays a bit crumbly, you can just mold your balls together and it'll be fine.
Our first batch in the oven didn't bake down. They didn't flatten at all. I have a recipe for regular Snickerdoodles that I love and I don't remember if it says to press the cookies before baking but I don't think it does. This one doesn't expressly say it, either. So we didn't. The second batch, we pressed a bit. We used a fork, sort of like we would with a peanut butter cookie, but didn't press them as flat. Both batches were cooked completely through so whether you press the cookies or not will be a matter of preference.
Personally......as I got ready to type this sentence, I looked up. I was about to say "Personally, I think they're a bit heavy on the cinnamon." I remember that I put 2 T of Sugar in a bowl and 2 T of Cinnamon. Clearly, that is way too much cinnamon as the recipe says 2t, not 2T. Silly me. So if I had actually paid attention to the recipe, they'd be perfect. As it is, they're really darn good.
These are great on their own, with a glass of milk, or a cup of coffee. Make a batch (or two) of these bad boys and enjoy!
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