This year I introduced this awesome cookie to my Christmas cookie collection and it has become a new favorite to a bunch of the people I gifted them to. Because they’re more involved than all the other cookies in my Christmas collection, I photographed the steps and figured I’d share the recipe (click through the picture slideshow at the bottom). Enjoy!

 

Snickerdoodle Dough

 

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon + 3 tablespoons granulated sugar for rolling cookies in

 

~Cream together shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well, until creamy. Add flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar and mix until combined.~

 

(Note: This dough is smaller than the gingersnap dough. If you’d like to make sure you aren’t left with excess gingersnap dough, I’d increase this dough by half.)

 

Gingersnap Dough

 

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar for rolling cookies in

 

~Cream together shortening and sugar. Add molasses and egg and mix well. Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger and mix until combined. Put 1/4 cup sugar in a small bowl and set aside for rolling dough in.~

 

Bringing the dough’s together:

 

I find it’s best to make these dough’s the night before so they have time to firm up in the refrigerator. It’s not necessary, though.

 

To start, set aside two bowls with the sugar and sugar/cinnamon mixtures in them for dipping the cookies in.

 

Then, using a pizza cutter, slice 1-2” strips of each dough and press them together, pushing and squeezing until you have a long rope of dough. The dough’s will crumble if you try to roll them into this strip.

 

Slice the strip into 1-2” squares and roll each square into a ball. I suggest preparing all of the dough like this before dipping them into the sugar. (The original recipe I found for this suggested rolling two separate balls in their appropriate sugars and then pressing them together, however the sugar makes it difficult for them to stick to each other properly.)

 

Once you’ve got all the dough rolled into balls, dip the ginger side into the sugar and the snickerdoodle side into the cinnamon sugar mixture. When placing them on the cookie sheet, position them so the split in color is turned upward if you want your cookies to have that half in half or ying yang look.

 

Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes.

 

(Note: My oven cooks high and I often only leave them in for 7.5 minutes by the last few trays. Use your best judgment. The cookies should have a bit of crunch on the ginger side and a chewy texture on the snickerdoodle side.)