Snickerdoodle Cookies

What a wet, rainy Spring weekend we've had here! It rained constantly all day Saturday and then on and off on Sunday. A great excuse for baking, I think! Firstly though, we went to buy some chickens in Kyneton. There's a guy up there selling year old chickens for $3. They're ex-battery hens so it's lovely to see them in a yard with plenty of space! So far, they're getting used to our hen house, and the other hen & rooster that live there. As you can see, some of their feathers are missing but they'll grow back soon enough! :) At least I'll be able to collect more eggs for baking soon too.

So anyway, on Sunday I decided (it took me forever to decide too!) to make some of Martha's Snickerdoodle Cookies, which you can find here on her website. They were really easy to make, and turned out beautifully. 

Ingredients: 

2 3/4 cups plain flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

125g unsalted butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 large eggs

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line baking trays with baking paper, set aside.

2. Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter, shortening, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine.

3. In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small ice cream scoop to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. 

4. Bake until the cookies are set in the centre and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool, about 5 minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack. 

And here is the finished product! These cookies were super easy and turned out really well! They have a lovely cinnamon, sugary taste to them that I like (I love cinnamon). 

I actually didn't have any vegetable shortening (I'm not even sure if they sell it in Australia - and we had no copha which most websites said to replace it with) so I ended up substituting it with butter. I don't think it effected them in any way, they still ended up fine! I also used a tablespoon to get my scoops of batter out to make the balls and even those cookies ended up really big! (the scoop the recipe called for was the equivalent of 2 1/2 tbsp). I'll definitely be making these again. :)