This Monday, driving back to our place after the fourth wedding we've attended this fall, I got another inarguable sign of winter: snickerdoodle craving. Out of nowhere, I could taste them in my mouth, and feel the perfect snickerdoodle texture smashing between my teeth. I warned the Chief Taster that we'd have a batch in the next few days. She sighed her resignation, hoping that she would be able to bear the threat of more baked goods.
The last time I made snickerdoodles was over two years ago, when I still lived in Bend, and winter arrived much earlier than here in Virginia (I still have trouble with the knowledge that, for the first time in my life, I live south of the Mason-Dixon line). When I pulled them out of my pack as Summit Cookies, my Scotsman friend laughed at the name. He'd never heard of them before, and I thought that was odd, because I had grown up with them. On the other hand, he'd never heard of zucchini bread either, and raved about it the first time he had mine.
I realized while making this batch that snickerdoodles are a primordial cookie; the most basic cookie form, before it gets tarted up with chocolate chips, nuts, bits of fruit, icing, bacon, or all of the above. If you want to try your own batch, I suggest this recipe from Ms. Crocker. I think my doughballs were a bit smaller than she suggested, and I used a very small bowl for the sugar mix, because it gets used up and spread out easily, and it's easier to get the doughballs coated when the sugar mix is piled up. I also used a spoon to scoop some over the top of the dougballs. I just said "doughballs" an awful lot, and the software tells me I spelled it wrong every time.
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