So Snickerdoodles you say? What kind of a name is that? I did some snooping around and thanks to Wikipedia, I have a possible answer! Snickerdoodles are most likely German and the name perhaps comes from a mispronunciation of Schneckennudeln, or cinnamon-dusted sweet rolls called “snail dumplings.” The German word Schnecke means a snail-like shape. Well there’s some fun trivia…but on to the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Shortening
• 1 1/2 cup White Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 3 cups All Purpose Flour (sifted)
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla

Coating

• 2 tsp Cinnamon
• 2 tbsp White Sugar

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

Cream together the shortening and 1 1/2 cups white sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt (and cream of tartar if you want to use any, about 1-2 tsps is enough).

I like to add a little vanilla…it’s not in most traditional recipes, but who doesn’t love vanilla extract?

Slowly add the flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Pausing to stir 2-3 times.

Once the dough is mixed , you can stick it in the fridge for 10 or so minutes while you clean up. You can butter 2 baking pans, too.

Then, mix the 2 tsp of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of sugar in a small bowl.

Take the dough out of the fridge and scoop it into 1″ balls. Toll between the palms of your hands and then coat in sugar.

Twelve fit nicely on a baking sheet!

Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown and a knife comes out of the center of a cookie clean.

Look at the cinnamony goodness! Enjoy!

Ingredients (Oatmeal) 

• 3/4 cup White Sugar
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar (packed/sifted)
• 2.5 cups flour
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 Eggs
• 2 room temperature sticks (1 cup) of Butter (if you use salted, don’t add any salt, if you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
• 2 cups Oats
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup Butterscotch Chips

Ingredients (No Oatmeal)

• 1 3/4 cup White Sugar
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 Eggs
• 2 room temperature sticks (1 cup) of Butter (if you use salted, don’t add any salt, if you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
• 1 Tbsp warm water (At the end I like to add a bit of warm water, especially if the dough is thick)
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup Butterscotch Chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cut the butter into chunks in your bowl and whip it together to make sure it will mix well.

Add the sugar and whip together. (These pictures depict the oatmeal recipe, if you are making the original, use all white sugar)

Add the vanilla extract and mix in.

Add the eggs. It’s better to add one at a time and beat them just until they are mixed. Over mixing can sometimes lead to flatter cookies.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt (if applicable).

Add flour mixture to the cream mixture in slowly and in sections. Mix in each section until all the flour is blended and add some more flour.

When the flour is all mixed in, add the oatmeal (if applicable). Mix well.

Then add in the chips and mix just until chips are evenly dispersed in the dough.

This recipe yields around 4 dozen cookies. Since I don’t have 4 different cookie sheets, I just butter up 2 at a time and reuse them.

So, butter up the sheets- I just take the whole stick in my hand and “draw” the butter on the sheet. Take a spoon, or a small ice cream scoop, and spoon up a glob (about 1″ diameter) roll it in your hands into a ball, and place it on the sheet. 12 to a sheet

Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remember, they keep cooking even after you take them out of the oven.

Let them cool on a wire rack, and ENJOY!

Enjoy!

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cup All Purpose White Flour
• 2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Corn Oil
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 2 Eggs (room temperature)
• 1/4 tsp Salt

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Icing Ingredients:

• 2 tbps Milk
• 1 cup Confectioner’s Sugar (amount depends on the consistency you want the icing, more sugar is thicker, less sugar is more runny)
• 1/2 tsp Almond Extract
• Juice from 1/2 Lemon

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Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Measure out the milk and set it aside.

Start by sifting the flour, salt and baking powder together in a bowl. I like to just bang the knife against the sifter. It’s noisy, but works.

In another bowl*, mix the oil, sugar and vanilla. (*If you are using a Kitchenaid Mixer, you can mix these ingredients in that bowl to save some dirty dishes. I used a separate bowl because it’s easier to photograph an open bowl.)

Make sure it is completely blended-I like to beat it together with a fork.

Add each egg, one at a time, mixing completely. Beat until the mixture is fluffy.

Now let’s regroup. We have 3 separate bowls- the milk, the sugar mixture, and the flour mixture. The next step is to add a ladle full of the flour mixture to the sugar (either in a big bowl or the kitchenaid) and mix.

Then, add a a ladle full of milk and blend.

Alternate, mixing in between, until all of your ingredients are mixed in.

The next step is to prepare the pan. For an easy, foolproof way to make sure your cake won’t stick to the pan, check out this tip.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan (either with the wax paper trick, by buttering and flouring, or your own method).

Bang the pan on the counter a few times to get all of the air bubbles out.

Put the pan in the oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until the outside is lightly browned and an inserted knife/toothpick comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, I prepare the icing. It’s so simple in theory, but finding the right consistency can be somewhat of a trial and error process. Start with 1/8 cup of milk in a small bowl.

Sift in some of your confectioner’s sugar and whisk quickly.

Add the almond extract and squeeze in the juice of a lemon half. It’s important to add these before you get to the perfect consistency because this liquid will make the icing runnier that you want if you add it at the end. Keep sifting in sugar until you are happy with the consistency. If you want the icing to be more solid instead of syrupy, add more sugar.

Look at the mess I made

Simply spoon the icing over the *COOLED* cake, sprinkle on some more confectioner’s sugar, and viola.

Happy eating!

We chose to make the pie at one of his fraternity houses, affectionately named “Maple Light” because it is a smaller, albeit cleaner version of it’s neighbor, “Maple.” Well, cooking there was an experience- amidst hungover frat boys who were pleasantly surprised to find the aroma of apple pie wafting through the house.

Okay- Down to the nitty gritty:

Ingredients – Pie Dough

• Generous 2 3/8 cup of all purpose flour
• A pinch of salt
• 3 oz (3/4 of a stick) of butter – softened and cut into pieces
• 3oz (about 7 tbsp) of lard or vegetable shortening – cut into small pieces
• 6 tbsp of cold water
• a beaten egg or some milk (for glazing)

Ingredients – Pie Filling

• 1 lb of Apples (about 5 medium sized)
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp cloves

The dough takes about 10 minutes to make and must refrigerate for another half an hour, so don’t preheat the oven or worry about cutting up the apples until after you’ve made your dough.

To make the dough, sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add in the chunks of butter and lard/shortening until the mixture crumbles up.

I used my fingers to pinch the dough around and make sure there weren’t any big globs of shortening or butter. Keep mixing and pinching…okay, now do it some more. It will look like coffee cake crumbles eventually. Then, add the 6 tbsp of cold water and wrap the mixture together into a dough- again, don’t be afraid to use your hands.

This big happy scrumptous ball of dough can then go into the fridge for a half an hour.

While we were making our pie, the great Shawn Doolen decided to make some lunch…

Then he changed his mind and made tacos. He was kind enough to share.

While the dough is in the fridge, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and wash your apples. Then peel them…

and slice them in half. (You could use an apple corer if you have one, but I was working with limited tools and just cut them in half and triangled out the core on each half).

Slice your apples as thin or thick as you like- but make sure all the slices are the same thickness so they cook evenly (advice from the lovely Nicole).

Once the apples are all sliced up, put them in a bowl and mix in the sugar and the spices. I just mixed them up in with a spoon and marveled at the delicious, sweet, syrupy mixture.

Once the dough is chilled, take it out of the fridge and roll out 2/3 of it in a flat circle, a little more than a quarter of an inch thick. Mold this dough into your pie pan (we just used a cheap foil one from the grocery store).

Now comes the fun part: dump in your syrupy apple mixture into the molded dough. The apples could make a little mound above the edges, depending on how many apples you use.

Roll out the remaining dough for the lid (or pound it out with the heel of your hand if you don’t have a rolling pin- remember, frat house cooking). Wet the edge of the lid and press it over your pie, crinkling the edges to make sure they are attached well.

Lastly, baste the top of the pie in the glaze of your choice; we used a beaten egg. Unfortunately we used a little too much because we didn’t have a pastry brush. Improvising, we poured some on and spread it with a spatula . After basting, sprinkle the top with some sugar and cut slits in a decorative pattern.

Put the pie in the oven for 20 minutes at 450 degrees, and then reduce the heat to 350 for another 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Here is what our pie looked like out of the oven…

And here is is cut…

Voila! Happy Eating!