Snickerdoodles Two Ways

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt

2 tbls sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
(optional) 2 tsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 400. Combine the flour, soda, cream of tartar and salt. Beat the sugar, butter and shortening together. Add the eggs, one at a time mixing well to combine. Add the dry and mix well. Chill the dough for an hour. Mix the cinnamon and 2 tbls of sugar together. Make tbl sized balls of dough, roll them in cinnamon sugar and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. If you want, mix the cocoa in to the cinnamon sugar and roll some in that too. Bake for about 8 minutes. Cool for a minute on the sheet then transfer to a wire rack.

If you under cook these a little they will be nice and chewy. If you like them crisp cook them a bit longer.

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Mmmm, snickerdoodles. I mean really, who doesn't have that reaction when they see these buttery, cinnamony, sugary things? If you don't, well, you're probably a robot. This recipe came to me from one of my lovely sisters and while I was making it I thought it would be fun to add some chocolate in there somehow. It worked out... ok. Maybe working some chocolate into the dough itself.... hm. More experiments are clearly needed.

Snickerdoodles couldn't be easier, here's how you do it.

Ok, first off I didn't use shortening. I know it makes a crispier, lighter texture, but I'm a bit of a butter hound. So, butter and sugar. Mix them together. Then eggs. Well, egg, this is a half recipe. It's just two of us in the apartment and I don't like any of my neighbors enough to give them cookies. Heh. More mixing, then the dry ingredients. More mixing and then it's time to chill. I just cover it with plastic wrap in the bowl as is, can't think of anything easier. Now you have an hour to kill, you should probably start preheating the oven. At least if your oven is as crappy as mine is. But what else you do with the hour is your business, I'm not the nosy type. Then it's time to whip up the cinnamon sugar (and cocoa, if you're doing that) and roll some dough balls in it. I didn't get any shots of the cocoa/cinnamon sugar mixture, but I did get one of the dough balls on the cookies sheet. So that's something. And there you have it, two kinds of snickerdoodles. Like I said, the chocolate ones didn't turn out as I hoped. I'm definitely going to try it again though, there is much promise there. How would you folks add chocolate to snickerdoodles?