The Cookbook Experiment: Snickerdoodles

My daughter Paulina felt like making something last night.  She chose the Snickerdoodles recipe by "Unknown".  I like Unknown....he/she never causes any problems!

Snickerdoodles by Unknown

Fun Fact: Snickerdoodles were a favorite of America's cookie-loving Dutch colonist.  No one knows where they got their funny name but, given their delicious flavor and texture, we're sure they'll be around for a few more generations.

(1) cup shortening
(1 1/2) cups sugar
(2) eggs
(2) teaspoons cream of tartar
(2 3/4) cups sifted flour
(1) teaspoon baking soda
(1/4) teaspoon sugar
(2) teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix shortening, sugar, and eggs thoroughly.  Blend flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt.  Stir into shortening mixture.  Shape dough into 1" balls. Roll in mixture of (2) tablespoons sugar and cinnamon.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet and bake 8-10 minutes. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

My take-a-ways for this recipe:

• We typically do not use cream of tartar because we do not like the taste. Instead we used (2) teaspoons of baking powder. Baking powder and baking soda together can be a substitute for cream of tartar anyway.
• These should have been called "disappearing cookies" because as soon as they came out of the oven they disappeared!
• The best part about this is that my daughter made them!

Lunch?

I have not been grocery shopping this week.  Things are a tiny bit tight while I wait for that first paycheck that arrives on this Friday.  However this does provide an opportunity for making more things from scratch instead of running to the store for the convenient version!

The first thing that I am making today is some honey wheat bread.  I am not sure what recipe I will use yet.  I may just modify my white bread recipe and cross my fingers! Although I do have a bread machine cookbook with lots of different recipes in it.  I wonder if the recipes have to be modified for use WITHOUT a bread machine?

I also just made some pasta salad to take to work with me this week.  It is basically a tuna macaroni salad.  It has just two cans of tuna, six hard boiled eggs, chopped yellow onion, chopped, sweet pickle relish, Duke's mayo, some mustard and some salt and pepper. This is a recipe my family has made for a long time.  My mom also used to put in cubed sharp cheddar cheese but I don't really like the cheese with the tuna.  I am not a real big fan of any cheese with any seafood! 

I am craving sweets too.  Maybe some snickerdoodles today? Or a chocolate chip? Or all the sweet stuff in the house!! My daughter's PMS must be rubbing off on me so I am craving tacos and chocolate cake! :)