Snickerdoodles

I had mentioned in a previous post that my grandfather's health has been declining, but thankfully, he seems to be stable at the moment. His 80th birthday is this coming Tuesday, so my family threw him a surprise party last night. He was transferred to a rehabilitation facility on Friday and they allowed him to leave for a few hours--just enough time to allow us to get him out and about for a bit and remind him how much we all adore him! My grandfather is always telling stories about his childhood and has made mention on several occasions of certain things his Mom used to make when he was a young boy. He always raves about the peanut butter cookies I make (he says they taste just like the ones his Mom made) and has made mention of how his Mom used to make some type of butter cookie that he just loved, so I decided that I wanted to make him both the peanut butter cookies and these snickerdoodles. I found the recipe on Allrecipes--it was the top rated version and had over 2000 very positive reviews. Per several of the reviewers suggestions, I used butter-flavored Crisco and let me tell you...the cookies just melt in your mouth!

Snickerdoodles

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Note: I ended up having to use an extra tablespoon of both the sugar and cinnamon to roll the cookies in!

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.

Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

Source: Allrecipes