mutteringhousewife

The store cupboard is looking a little bare, so I thought I’d ask the kids what they’d like by way of biscuits. Then I thought, save my breath. They’ll want snickerdoodles.

This is a recipe I’ve adapted from one in The Good Cookie, by Trish Boyle. Being an American recipe, it makes lots.

Cream together 180 grams of butter with one and a third cup of caster sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of some form of syrup. The original recipe suggests molasses, but I found that to be a little distinctive for the Australian palate. I use maple syrup, but you could also use golden syrup. I don’t use golden syrup because it features heavily in other biscuits I make a lot of of. Beat in two eggs, one at a time. I sometimes buy my eggs from AC Butchery because they look excitingly free range. These ones were large and very very white, even the yolks were really light coloured. They are indistinguishable from Swedish models. Mix in two and half cups of flour, one tablespoon of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg. Actually, I don’t measure the nutmeg, I just grate in a fair old sprinkling with the trusty Microplane.

Roll balls of mixture about the size of a walnut (in its shell) and dip them in cinnamon sugar. You make up cinnamon sugar by mixing a tablespoon of cinnamon with a quarter of a cup of caster sugar, I like to keep some on hand for cinnamon toast. The dough is quite sticky for biscuits, but that’s correct. Place them on baking trays lined with baking paper and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about sixteen minutes. Keep an eye on them, you only want the tiniest amount of brown. These biscuits are quite soft on the inside, which means that my husband won’t eat them, and the kids tell me that they’re not as nice when they’re crisp all the way through. Know your audience!

Before on the bottom, after on top.