Recipe: Winter Spice Snickerdoodles

When snow is falling and I’m cozy on the couch, I reach for something sweet – and preferably still hot from the oven. My favourite winter treat? The snickerdoodle. It’s traditionally a puffy, yet chewy sugary cookie that's filled with the light spice of cinnamon. These lean even more into traditional winter spices (ginger! nutmeg!) while keeping the same texture of the snickerdoodle we all know and love. Plus, the browned butter is an easy way to make your spices even, well, spicier.

These cookies are a cinch to make: you probably have most of the ingredients on hand already. Feel free to play with the amount of spice too, they can handle it. 

Recipe: Winter Spice Snickerdoodles

Ingredients

Cookies

½ cup butter browned

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp cloves

¼ tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp ginger

1 1/4 cup AP flour

1 tsp cream of tartar

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

¼ tsp salt

Cinnamon sugar

½ cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon 

Method

Preheat your oven to 350F and line a baking tray with parchment.

Brown your butter in a small saucepan – make sure to keep an eye on it as butter will go from foamy to perfectly toasted very quickly. Pour your browned butter directly into a bowl that contains all of the spices. The hot butter will allow the spices to bloom, exaggerating their flavour. Place the brown butter-spice mixture into the fridge until cool and semi-set.

In the meantime, make your cinnamon sugar. You will use this to coat the cookie dough before baking. 

In a separate bowl, mix flour, cream of tartar and baking soda. Set aside. 

When the brown butter-spice mixture is cool and semi-set, cream it with the sugar until light and fluffy. I use an electric mixer for this but you can do it by hand – however it will take longer. Add the egg, vanilla and salt and continue to beat until combined and, again, light and fluffy.

Pour your mixture of flour, baking soda and cream of tartar into the creamed butter/sugar/egg. Mix gently by hand until the mixture comes together.

Separate even sized balls of dough and roll them in the cinnamon sugar. Place on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool on the tray, this will allow them to set as they are soft when they come out of the oven.

Makes 12 medium-sized cookies. 

Additional Note

The cream of tartar gives snickerdoodles their trademark flavour! don't substitute it for anything.