Browned Butter Snickerdoodles Recipe

There are SO MANY snickerdoodle recipes out there, what's adding one more browned butter snickerdoodles recipe to the internet?

I cooked up this recipe after realising I'd never actually eaten a real snickerdoodle before, and desperately wanting some. I had, in fact, made Nigella Lawson's version from her book 'How to Be a Domestic Goddess' many years ago – but found out that these almost ball-like, cake-like things were not, in fact, traditional snickerdoodles. Tasty, but not the flatter, chewier ones my heart desired.

Years later, I kept seeing recipes pop up on the web. The common theme among the traditional ones was that true traditional snickerdoodles are made with shortening. No butter, just shortening. And the number one must-add ingredient? Cream of tartar – both to activate the baking soda and to give the cookies a tasty tang.

This is where snickerdoodle recipes started to diverge. While some recipes insist that it's a cinnamon-only cookie, others insist equally strongly that a snickerdoodle isn't a snickerdoodle without both cinnamon and nutmeg. Some add the spices to both the cookie dough and the sugar coating, some only to the sugar coating.

Then some say they're tastier with butter instead of shortening. Then some say you can use both butter and shortening to maintain the chewiness that shortening gives, but with the added flavour of butter.

And then there's my preferences: I hate adding baking soda – also known as bicarbonate of soda – to anything. It makes everything it touches taste like metal to me, and unless it's 100% necessary to add it (like for homemade honeycomb), I'll swap it with baking powder. Baking powder's actually a pre-made mix of baking soda and cream of tartar, but the flavour's a lot milder.

The reason why baking powder is a mix of the two is because the bubbly chemical reaction between alkaline soda and acidic cream of tartar is what causes your bakes to rise. And why, if you add just soda, you'll need to add an acidic element too – be it cream of tartar, lemon juice or vinegar. If you just add soda by itself, nothing will happen. So not only does baking powder taste better to me, but it's also more convenient.

So I decided to do my usual trick of using baking powder instead of soda for these cookies. Which means that technically, you don't need cream of tartar to get the cookies to rise, because it's already in the powder mix. However, cream of tartar itself is considered an essential snickedoodle ingredient for its tanginess – so I still included it in the recipe, albeit in a smaller quantity than others, because there's already a little in the baking powder itself.

In the end, my personal favourite combo was: butter and shortening (with browned butter for a more intense flavour), baking powder instead of baking soda, cream of tartar (of course), cinnamon and nutmeg (with additional nutmeg in the dough but no additional cinnamon, as cinnamon can be quite strong), and also a little vanilla in the dough.

You can also watch me make these on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes about 35 cookies.)

Ingredients for Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough:

100g unsalted butter
100g vegetable shortening (I use Trex)
280g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
2 eggs
350g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

For Rolling:

80g caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line a couple of baking sheets with nonstick baking paper.

2. To make the browned butter, heat the butter in a pan until it melts, bring it to a gentle simmer, and cook until it turns a golden brown colour and smells nutty – take it off the heat immediately at this point, and leave to cool.

3.  In a large bowl, cream the browned butter, vegetable shortening and caster sugar together until fluffy.

4. Beat in the vanilla and eggs, and stir in the dry ingredients.

5. Stir the rolling ingredients together in a wide, shallow bowl.

6. Scoop a tablespoonful of cookie dough, roll into a ball with your hands, roll in your sugar and spice mixture, and pop it on a tray.

7. Repeat with the rest of the dough, spacing your cookies a couple of inches apart so they have room to spread.

8. Bake for about 10 minutes, and leave to cool before eating.

Enjoy, and have fun.