Snickerdoodle smack down

I looked up four recipes for Snickerdoodles. Two called for vanilla, the other two called for cream of tartar, one used whole wheat pastry flour and all butter, the others had butter and shortening. I grew up on the Betty Crocker recipe which was almost identical to the Cooks Illustrated.



Cream together:

• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) soft butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (in my case 1/4 cup coconut oil and 1/4 cup palm oil)

Then add and cream:

• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbs orange juice (because I am using whole wheat flour)

Sift together and add to creamed mix:

• 1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Chill.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Roll tablespoons of dough in cinnamon sugar mixture. 

In this case I experimented with four different cinnamon sugar mixtures. For one batch I used Salsa Fina (fine spices): ginger, cinnamon, grains of paradise, nutmeg, mace, cloves. For the others I used one Tbs sugar with one tsp. cinnamon of one of these species: C. burmannii, C. loureiroi, C. aromaticum.

Of the four spiced sugars the differences were pretty subtle. I think the Salsa Fina was a little more nuanced and my favorite. Among the cinnamons, I preferred the C. loureiroi 'Vietnamese'. I don't know how much is that it came ground, whereas I ground the other two myself, but didn't get it nearly a fine as the commercially ground spice.