Favorite Cinnamon Cookies

Tasty Treat

Never underestimate these simple cinnamon cookies. Subtly invigorating, surreptitiously sweet, the wily cinnamon cookie commands respect, even when hidden in plain sight. They are delicious with coffee, iced coffee, tea, iced tea—or any other beverage—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Welcome at any party, these cookies are unassuming but eager to please. They get along with everyone, but go mostly unnoticed—that is, until they’ve vanished from the plate.

Though they are excellent with lemonade and any other summer-time beverage, my favorite memory as a child is eating cinnamon cookies on long winter afternoons while reading and drinking hot tea in front of the gas heater.

I’ve sense learned that cinnamon—a powder that begins as the inner bark of a Sri Lankan tree—has a long, fabled history for warming the senses and producing feelings of joy. I understand my great grandmothers used to make something similar, but those recipes are long gone. This one came to me via Betty Crocker, but I have tested it twice in the last two weeks and gotten delicious, though different, results. One batch was soft and chewy; the other was crisp and cakey, almost like a British biscuit. You really can’t go wrong with this one.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

STEP BY STEP:
1. Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
2. Mix 1 1/2 cups of sugar with softened butter and eggs in a large bowl.
3. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
4. Mix 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon in a small bowl.
5. Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake 8 to 10 minutes until set. (There should be no noticeable color difference.) Remove cookies from cookie sheet to a wire rack for cooling.

Good Enough to Eat!