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| Note to self: Cookies expand while baking |
The Cookie Project: Recipe #2
I met our guest cookie baker late one night at the 2013 OWFI writer conference. Cathy Collar is as warm and down home as my kitchen smells when I'm baking up her Snickerdoodle recipe.
Cathy is an author, jewelry maker, mom, and joyful grandma. She is a special person I am grateful to know.
Please read the sweet note her daughter Jennifer wrote about "Snickerdoodle Momma." Share some blogger love by visiting Cathy's blog, and while you are nibbling on your snicker-doodles why don't you drop by the websites of her talented daughters: Jennifer McMurrain and Brandy Walker!
Snickerdoodle Momma Recipe
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| Welcome to the Cookie Project Cathy Collar! |
Ingredients:
1 Cup Butter or Margarine
2 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
1/4 cup of Milk
1 t Vanilla
3 3/4 cup of Flour
1/2 t Baking Soda
1/2 t Cream of tartar
1/2 t salt
Small bowl of Cinnamon & Sugar combined (I mixed 3T sugar with 3t cinnamon)
In mixing bowl cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time,
beating well after each. Blend in milk and vanilla. Thoroughly stir together, flour,
baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Stir into creamed mixture. Form into 1 inch
balls. Roll balls in cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place on greased cookie sheet 2
inches apart (Follow this sage advice- my first batch pictured above); slightly flatten balls.
Bake @ 375 till light brown about 10 min. Makes 8 dozen (IF you don't eat any of the dough and IF you are good at making 1 inch balls. In the Marotta kitchen my batch made up 45 cookies- you do the math!)
Snicker-doodle Momma by Jennifer McMurrain
My mom and I have an ongoing debate on who the above recipe belongs to. She says it’s hers because she passed it down to me and I say it’s mine because I’ve perfected it over the years.
Every year at Christmas I hear, “Jennifer, are you going to make snickerdoodles?” And you know who is asking that question? My mom.
I’d like to think the snickerdoodle recipe isn’t the only thing my mom has passed on to me.
My mom can always find something nice to say about a person. She has an uncanny ability to look at situations and see it from a different light. You may see a group of outcasts in the park, but she sees a group of people who have finally found friends who understand each other.
Mom will go above and beyond to help people and never ask for anything in return. She has sent countless dollars, jewelry, and other gifts to people dealing with terminal and chronic illness. When we lost my younger sister at the age of 24 to leukemia, her first instinct was to start a jewelry design business in my sister’s name and give the bulk of our proceeds to help others. For the past 10 years she has never faltered in this mission. Even in 2011 when she broke her back, she still made it to every arts and crafts show.
My mom has never met a stranger. More times than not she will have meaningful conversations with people in the grocery line that she’s just met. I can’t count how many people have confessed to her they’ve lost a loved one when we are at arts and crafts festivals selling our jewelry and books. Knowing she has lost a daughter, they see her as a kindred spirit and I know no matter how they felt walking in, they know they are not walking the agonizing path of grief alone. They have a friend who completely understands what they are going through. That friend is my mom.
As I live my own life, as a woman as well as a mom, I try very hard to live like my mother and all of her attributes, including the three above. Hopefully one day my daughter will look at me as her own “snickerdoodle momma”.
