Snickerdoodle Cookies (2024)

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Super soft and full of cinnamon, these are our FAVORITE Snickerdoodle Cookies that we’ve made and enjoyed for decades.

MEREDITH: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “These are delicious! Definitely the best snickerdoodles I have ever made! The recipe was easy to follow and they turned out perfect. I will be using this recipe for years to come!”

How to Make Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodle Cookies are a classic cookie recipe we have made our whole lives, and our family is obsessed with them!

We first published this recipe over a decade ago and although we haven’t changed the recipe, we have shared more tips and tricks to make sure it’s NO-FAIL and always turns out EVERY TIME.

• PREP TIME: 10 MINS
• COOK TIME: 10 MINS

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar – Why have cream of tartar? It’s a key ingredient that transforms the cookies into a tangy, chewy cookie, differentiating it from a typical butter sugar cookie.
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup Unsalted Butter – just softened! This is the key. Too soft, and the cookies will be flat, too cold and the cookies will be too puffy.
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 Eggs – incorporate better than chilled eggs. To warm them up faster, place them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• Cinnamon Sugar Coating – Sugar + Cinnamon.

Step by Step: In Photos

1. DRY INGREDIENTS. In a medium bowl, stir together the 2 3/4 cup flour, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
2. WET INGREDIENTS. Cream together the 1 cup butter (barely softened) and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Add the 2 eggs and vanilla and mix until it is well blended.
3. SHAPE. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix well, and then shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the dough balls into your cinnamon and sugar mixture.
4. BAKE. Place on an un-greased pan, bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes. Let sit on the cookie sheet for a few additional minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

to chill or not to chill?

Many Snickerdoodle recipes call for CHILLING the dough. Ours DOES NOT, but you can if you’d like. This image above shows you what each cookie looked like basked on chilling and flattening the snickerdoodle dough.

• First cookie – CHILLED. The result is usually a thicker cookie, without as many cracks as are usually found on the tops of Snickerdoodles.
• Center cookie – CHILLED + FLATTENED. This cookie was chilled, rolled into a ball, rolled into the cinnamon sugar mixture, then flattened a little bit with the bottom of a cup. If you like a more flat, chewy cookie, try this method.
• Last cookie – NOT CHILLED + NOT FLATTENED. This is our classic recipe. No chilling, no flattening, and baked to perfection. This is how we prefer our cookies, but use the above methods if you like your cookies more thick or flat.

Why is it called a Snickerdoodle? From Wikipedia: The Joy of Cooking claims thatSnickerdoodlesare probably German in origin, and the name is a corruption of the German word Schneckennudeln (“snail noodles”), a kind of pastry.