Thursday, August 14, 2008

Operation Baking Gals - Sweets To Our Soldiers


Earlier this week, a friend of mine turned me on to the Operation Baking Gals organization and blog. Operation Baking Gals recruits volunteers to bake and send goodies to service persons overseas that they can share. What a fabulous idea!
The second round of Operation Baking Gals will be having their mass mailing the week of August 23-30. I have joined Team Hungry Fox for this round and will be sending my goodies to Daryl, who is in Iraq. Next round, I plan to host my own team. Stay tuned and I'll be posting the info to show how you can join my team! To join a team for the current round, head on over to Operation Baking Gals and enlist!

All this baking talk has me craving Snickerdoodles. Snickerdoodles were my favorite cookie growning up. None of my friends had ever heard of them, so I thought my mom was the only one on Earth who made them. When I was dating my husband, one of our conversations turned to cookies and he mentioned snickerdoodles. I was amazed! He was the first person I'd ever met, outside my family, who knew what snickerdoodles were. I believe that was the moment I knew I would marry him.

Snickerdoodles
About 2 dozen cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Coating
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

In large bowl, cream butter and sugars on high speed until creamy.
Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth.
In separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix well.
Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes.
While dough is chilling, preheat oven to 300 degrees and combine coating ingredients in small bowl.
Form dough into walnut-sized balls.
Roll dough balls in coating mixture and set 1" apart on parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes or until crackly, yet still very soft.
Cookies will look underdone, but will set up while cooling. DO NOT OVERBAKE.




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