Cinnamon Sugar Cookies (also known as Snickerdoodles)

It's been a while.

Around the time when I broke my camera earlier this year, I stopped blogging. What is a food blog without pictures?

I still don't have a camera, but I do have an iphone, and it takes somewhat decent pictures, so I've decided to return to blogging.

This week I've been on a cookie baking binge. It's been a busy week with lots of rehearsals, and lots of rehearsals means a lot of people who need a little extra joy (cookies) in their lives. I think the orchestra managers love me a little more than they used to after this week.

Right now, I'm spending my summer at the music festival in Aspen, CO. It's a gorgeous place to be and it's a wonderful musical experience.

On Monday night, as I left rehearsal at 10:00 at night, I was not in a very good mood. Our conductor was extremely rude to everyone and treated every musician in a somewhat condescending manner. As a result, none of us really enjoyed that rehearsal.

I thought to myself, what better way to brighten my mood than by eating a snickerdoodle from Paradise Bakery? Unfortunately, Paradise closes at 10. I was too late. So I decided to make snickerdoodles! I only wanted to eat one, but I knew others would appreciate the rest, so it was worth it.

I couldn't find any particularly convincing looking snickerdoodle recipes online, so I simply took a good looking sugar cookie recipe and added cinnamon! They turned out amazing! Everyone in my orchestra loved them. I even gave one to Julia Fischer (super famous violinist) and she said she loved it! That was an exciting moment for me.

Here's what they looked like in the end:

Delicious.

Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe

adapted from a sugar cookie recipe from Bon Appetit, written by Gretchen Davis

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon salt

a very hearty dose of cinnamon that I did not measure

extra sugar and cinnamon for pressing the cookies with

Beat butter, oil, sugar, and powdered sugar until well blended.

Mix in egg and vanilla.

Add flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and cinnamon (to taste). Mix it all in.

Cover the dough and let it chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll dough into small balls (about the size of a ping-pong ball) and place on baking sheet.

In a bowl mix together some sugar and cinnamon. Dip the flat bottom of a glass into water and then into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Then, use this sugar covered bottom of a glass to flatten each ball of dough into little circles.

Once done with that process, bake cookies for about 15 minutes, or until they are a light brown color.

Place cookies on a rack and let cool!