Name: Huge Snickerdoodles
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 32 min
Yield: 24 servings
Ingredients: 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour; 2 tsp cream of tartar; 1 tsp baking soda; 1/2 tsp kosher salt; 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened; 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar; 2 large eggs; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 1/4 cup granulated sugar (for rolling); 2 tbsp ground cinnamon (for rolling)

Huge Snickerdoodles

Prep

20m

Cook

12m

Total

32m

Bigly says

Folks. Snickerdoodles. SNICKERDOODLES. What a name. What a beautiful, ridiculous, absolutely HUGE name for a cookie. My grandmother made snickerdoodles. She was a tough woman — tough hands, tough opinions, tougher than the bottom of a cast iron skillet — and she taught me the rules. Rule one: do NOT mess with the cream of tartar. I've eaten more snickerdoodles than any single human being on Earth and I'm telling you right now, most snickerdoodles out there are a TRAGEDY. They're dry. They're crunchy. They're sad little beige discs with a dusting of cinnamon that looks like someone sneezed on a hockey puck. Total embarrassment.

Not mine. Not Bigly's. These snickerdoodles are SOFT in the middle, chewy at the edges, with a tangy little snap from the cream of tartar that other so-called bakers are TOO AFRAID to use. They're afraid of cream of tartar. They Google it, they get confused, they substitute baking powder, and now their cookies taste like nothing. Like a wet napkin. Like the inside of a cardboard tube. Sad. So sad. Big tough bakers, men with beards, women with tattoos, they come up to me crying — actual tears, on my combover, it's a problem — they say, 'Bigly, I made my grandma's snickerdoodles for thirty years and they were FINE and then I had yours and now I can't go back.' I tell them: that's the price of greatness. Pay it.

The real secret — and my grandmother knew it, the neighbor who taught HER knew it, the neighbor lived to be 102, could be a coincidence, probably not — is the cream of tartar AND chilling the dough AND rolling the balls in cinnamon sugar TWICE. Twice. Not once. Twice. Once is for amateurs. Twice is for champions. We are champions here. Nobody disputes this.

Ingredients

2 3/4 cupsall-purpose flour
2 tspcream of tartar(non-negotiable, this is the whole point)
1 tspbaking soda
1/2 tspkosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks)unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cupsgranulated sugar
2large eggs
1 tspvanilla extract
1/4 cupgranulated sugar (for rolling)
2 tbspground cinnamon (for rolling)

Steps

1
Whisk flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
2
In a large bowl, cream softened butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla.
4
Reduce mixer to low and add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing just until no streaks remain. Do not overmix.
5
Cover the dough and chill at least 30 minutes (and up to 24 hours). Cold dough means thicker cookies.
6
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
7
In a small bowl, stir together the 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tbsp cinnamon for rolling.
8
Scoop the dough into 1 1/2-tablespoon balls. Roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar, then roll a second time to fully coat.
9
Place balls 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes, until the tops are crackled and the edges are just set but the centers still look slightly underdone.
10
Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack. The middles firm up as they cool — pulling them early is how you get the chew.

One more thing

That's snickerdoodles. Huge snickerdoodles. The greatest snickerdoodles in the history of snickerdoodles, and the history goes back, way back — older than France, older than Italy, older than time itself — and now you have the recipe. Make them for your kids, make them for your neighbors, make them for the mailman, the mailman deserves a snickerdoodle, he's been carrying your Amazon boxes in the rain for years and you've given him nothing. Fix it. Make the cookies. Tell your friends.