As a child, visiting family in Canada for Christmas, I spent the morning at a living history museum. We experienced various aspects of life as it would have been in pioneer times, including baking in a reconstruction kitchen. The cookies that we baked were small, sweet and flavoured with dusky cinnamon. Perhaps I hadn’t really come across the spice before, perhaps I inhaled rather a lot of it, but for whatever reason, the smell of cinnamon has always had a Proustian affect on me, transporting me back to that dark kitchen on a snowy day.

When searching for a cookie to bake for a picnic this week, I came across a recipe for Snickerdoodles, and I was reminded once more of that cinnamon scent. These are my attempt at re-creating those long remembered cookies. Cinnamon-infused, with a pleasing sugar crunch, they aren’t exactly what I recall, but they come pretty close, and are perfect for dunking in a mug of tea.

Cinnamon Cookies

For the dough:

60g butter

160g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 large egg

240g plain flour

3/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

For the coating:

1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

 

Cream the butter and sugar, stir in the vanilla essence. Add the egg and mix well.

Sift together the remaining ingredients and stir these in. Mix until the dough forms a smooth ball. Cover the bowl with cling-film and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 170, line two baking sheets with baking parchment.

Mix together the sugar and cinnamon for the coating.

Break off small, walnut-sized pieces of dough and roll these in the cinnamon sugar until completely coated. Place the balls on the baking sheets, spacing them well apart (they will spread as they cook).

Bake for 10-13 minutes, until a light golden colour. Leave for a few moments to set on the baking sheets, then transfer to a wire rack.

{Recipe slightly adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery : Cake Days}

You can find more scrumptious treats to bake in the ‘cake for the weekend’ recipe index.