Nigella’s Snickerdoodle Recipe

This delicious recipe for cake-like snickerdoodle cookies is from Nigella Lawson’s cookbook titled How To Be a Domestic Goddess.  After trying multiple recipes, these are the best – soft, but with a good crumb.  Nigella seems like such a wonderful and talented person – I even heard her on NPR a few weeks ago!

Snickerdoodle Recipe (from ‘How To Be a Domestic Goddess’)

• 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 baking sheets, lined with parchment or greased

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine the flour, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt, and set aside for a moment. In a large bowl, cream the butter with the 1/3 cup sugar until light in texture and pale in color, then beat in the egg and vanilla. Now stir in the dry ingredients until you have a smooth, coherent mixture. Spoon out the remaining sugar and the cinnamon onto a plate. Then, with your fingers, squeeze out pieces of the dough and roll between the palms of your hands into walnut sized balls. Roll each ball in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and arrange on your prepared baking sheets.

Bake for about 15 minutes, by which time they should be turning golden brown. Take out of the oven and leave to rest on the baking sheets for 1 minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 32.

I enjoyed these with a big glass of milk the night I made them and then dipped in tea the next morning.

Nigella