aka Snickerdoodles..!
sugar 'n spice.. makes for VERY nice!
A few weeks ago, I was browsing through my most recent acquisition when I came across a brief account of how this cinnamon sweet treat got it’s whimsical name. According to Lady Martha (or rather, ‘Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’), snickerdoodles are thought to be of German origin, and their name is actually a mispronunciation of schneckennudeln – or ‘crinkly noodles’.. Now I vaguely remember hearing a different story – that the cookie was named after some cartoon character.. (hmm.. what would a Farside cookie taste like I wonder?) but the Germanic heritage seems to be true – I’ve just seen Joy‘s beautiful, informative post and I strongly suggest having a read. Joy shares wonderful historical anecdotes about each SMS bake and I’m always bowled over by the depth of her culinary wisdom!
Whatever the origin, these snickerdoodles are tasty.. far too tasty.. The chewy, sugary-spiced rounds of yumminess are way too easy to devour so I had to think up a quick means of pawning them off on my boyfriend who, as I’ve mentioned before, is generally (and mystifyingly) cookie-averse.. The one sweet weakness he has seems to revolve around cream (whether it be whipped or pastry-style), and particularly creamy + fruit combinations – he has happily wolfed down cream-filled eclairs, banana-cream pie, and berry tarts with pastry cream filling.. So, armed with this knowledge, I decided to tempt Luke into polishing off a few of these scrumptious snickerdoodles this way:
Berry ‘Doodle Trifle
Now, it’s very important that everyone understands – these cookies DO NOT, in my opinion, need any extra embellishments!! They are delicious as they are and dressing ’em up this way felt like gilding the lily.. But hey-ho ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’.. without a dollop of cream. (I bought a dictionary of proverbs at a second-hand bookshop so I warn you, I’m likely to be throwing ’em in wherever vaguely appropriate.. and where totally inappropriate too probably..)
Opinions seem to differ as to what, exactly, a trifle is – but according to general consensus, it usually involves some kind of cakey layer (often sponge or ladyfingers), a fruity layer, a creamy layer (typically custard or whipped cream, but mascarpone counts too apparently) and definitely booze of some sort. If you’re really interested, you can find more detail here – but I just went with what I had (er, leftovers I wanted to use up) and what I hoped would be tempting.
For the cream layer, I beat 1 cup of mascarpone (leftover from my YWPWT entry) with half a cup of cream cheese, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar and quite a few teaspoons of Amaretto liqueur (sorry, I lost count.. I’m on a bit of a boozy-dessert kick at the moment, so I just kept adding Amaretto until I got a good punch of flavour). Then I chopped up about 10 of the cookies and used my brand spanking new cherry-pitter to pit a handful of cherries. (I’ve been wanting try this out, just to see how time-consuming a fresh cherry pie would take..dying to make one).
Then I layered the cookie chunks, cherries & some blueberries, dollops of cherry jam and heapings of mascarpone-amaretti cream. I managed to squeeze a few layers in each wine glass and since I had over-baked my first batch of snickerdoodles, the cookie layers didn’t end up soggy at all (I’m an accidental genius then really).
This week’s SMS treat was chosen by the talented Spike, who has kindly posted the full recipe as hostess – so head on over to her lovely site and break out the cinnamon!! These cookies were a breeze to whip up, although I broke up the steps over 2 days due to time constraints and a superstitious belief that, even after the dough has been chilled a bit (as Melissa instructs), the little ‘doodle balls should also be chilled once shaped and sugared, just to ensure they don’t spread too much. (I also tend to pop the cookie sheet in the freezer for extra insurance.)
And please check out the blogroll to see what all the other talented SMSers have done too!!
Sweet TheraPie 