Cinnamon Snaps!

These cinnamon snaps come from Didi Emmons' cookbook, Vegetarian Planet

the ingredients are:
2 cups unbleached flower
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 teaspoons ground cinnamon (i used closer to 3)
1 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 egg

the recipe involves a wet bowl and a dry bowl. above is the wet bowl, it has the butter, beaten, the 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, and the egg. at first it looked like too small of an amount, and frankly it looked like dog food. but it smells and tastes delicious. mixing these ingredients together was probably the most difficult part in the whole process. without a mixer it seems as though the butter will never soften, but it does...with work and dedication.

the dry bowl includes the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and allspice. this part is easy.

mix the two bowls together, slowly pouring the dry mixture into the wet and mixing it a bit at a time. again, tedious, but fairly easy. i pounded this into a large ball, put it in a bowl, covered it in plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. it still looks like very little dough for 24 cookies, but i went with it anyway. once it's chilled, roll 24 little balls, roll them in the left over white sugar, place them on cookie sheets (widely spaced apart...this is important because they EXPAND like crazy), so i used two cookie sheets, and press them down lightly.

they look quite beautiful actually.

bake them at 350 degrees. the recipe says 6-8 minutes, but i kept them in there for much longer, i don't think my oven gets hot enough. just keep an eye on them and it's easy to tell when they are done.

they were super yummy and a big hit at the party i took them to. they get really big and filling so don't worry about the small amount of dough it makes. they are thin but have a nice crisp to them without being so hard that you feel like you're going to break your teeth.