I'm a snickerdoodle purist. Meaning, I don't go for a lot of fancy flavors for snickerdoodles. The original, plain versions are fine for me. But every once in awhile, I'll play around and try something new. Partly because I'm often not baking for myself anyway and partly for the fun of trying a new recipe.
For once, I wasn't baking these to put in military care packages for Soldiers Angels. This time, I was baking them to put in lunch bags that were going to be distributed to homeless and hungry people for Easter Sunday.
Have you heard of mutual aid groups? I hadn't until the ice storms hit Texas back in February and I was looking at which organizations in Texas to donate to that would reach the Texans in need. I discovered the Austin mutual aid group and donated there. But it got me thinking on about mutual aid groups in general and I researched my local area. Sure enough, my town had a mutual aid Facebook group. I joined and learned that, while not an official 501(c)3 nonprofit, it literally provides mutual aid for people in my local community. Some people post needs like needing a ride to a vaccine appointment or a ride home from a late night work shift because their car broke down and they can't afford to get it fixed until payday. Other, more heartbreaking needs are requests for ready-to-eat foods for someone (or more than 1 person) living in their car and not being able to buy food or get a place to stay until payday. There are also posts from people offering used clothes or household items for anyone who needed them, rides to vaccine or doctor's appointments and so on. It's literally a group providing mutual aid to each other.
One of the posts last week was of a man who was distributing bagged lunches to people in need around town. I felt compelled to offer to bake cookies and brownies for the lunches. He accepted and we arranged a drop off time and location so he could include them in his lunch distribution that week.
I made these cookie butter snickerdoodles to put in the lunches. He distributes 80-100 lunches a week and while he assured me I didn't have to bake for all of them and that he would be glad to take whatever I did make,
of course I was going to bake for all of them. Which I did. And these cookies were part of the distribution. They were sturdy (it's important not to have cookies that are too fragile when they're being put into lunch bags), baked up thick and tasted good.
One batch of this recipe makes less than 2 dozen, given the size I made them so I made other recipes to come up with enough for at least each lunch bag to get a cookie or a brownie. Those recipes to follow.
3 cups (360 g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup (150 g) firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (140 g) cookie butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cinnamon sugar for rolling (combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar with 3 teaspoons cinnamon)
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon and salt; set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and cookie butter until smooth and combined.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
- With the mixer on low speed, add flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing briefly after each addition until just combined and no flour streaks remain. Do not overmix.
- Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture until completely covered and evenly space the dough balls onto the prepared sheets.
- Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Cool on the pans for 5 minutes then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
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