American Style: Snickerdoodles (Cup Measurements)

Happy New Year! My first offering of 2020 is a delicious cinnamony treat: the Snickerdoodle!

 

I meant to make these in the lead up to Christmas, as these are traditionally a holiday biscuit. But sadly for me I spent from December 19th to 31st in and out of bed with a horrible viral illness. So, a lot of my plans went right out of the window with my ability to breathe properly or eat. So, I made these during the week instead as my first baking venture of 2020.

As you know, last September I discovered the strange and enigmatic wonders of working with American cup measurements when I made whoopie pies. When I made those I thought to myself: could I design my own recipe with cups instead of ounces or grammes? That led me to this delicious creation, which was the result of much foostering and tweaking.

One thing I will impress upon you, however, is that you measure the ingredients correctly: there is, indeed, a way to properly use cups when measuring flour, caster sugar, and brown sugar.

I use Jill Selkowitz's guide to measuring flour on her website This Old Gal, where she stresses that flour must be nice and airy before measuring to get consistent results. Also, brown sugar must be compacted into the cup measurements nice and tightly to get the right results. Brown sugar is a little softer than white sugar, so the cupfuls are slightly lighter.

So, without further ado, here is the first recipe that I have ever designed to be made using American cup measurements!

INGREDIMENTS

2 cups (240 grammes) plain flour: wheat, or spelt, spooned and leveled
½ cup (105 grammes) soft light brown sugar, packed
½ cup (115 grammes) caster sugar
½ cup (115 grammes) butter
1 medium (US large) egg
½ level teaspoon (2.5 millilitres) baking soda
1 level teaspoon (5 millilitres) ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon (1 millilitre) fine salt
Optional: 1 level teaspoon (5 millilitres) ground ginger
Cinnamon sugar, to coat


METHOD

• Line one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper, and preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4). Make sure the oven racks are in the centre of the oven.
• In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Beat in the egg to get a fluffy mixture.
• Sieve in the dry ingredients and work by hand into a soft dough that is a little bit tacky.
• Divide the mixture into 12 balls, rolling each ball in cinnamon sugar to coat. Arrange the dough balls on the sheets about 2 inches (5 centimetres) apart to allow for spreading. I only have small trays so I can only fit 6 to 8 cookies on mine.
• Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on how crispy or chewy you want them: shorter cooking makes chewier cookies, longer cooking makes them crispier.

Traditional Amish Whoopie Pies: The Secret Is Revealed.....

Today's offering is these deliciously soft and squishy chocolate whoopie pies with their traditional whipped buttercream filling! And these cakes really taught me a huge lesson.

Now, I now I've made whoopie pies before, but this time it's different. Sometimes an old dog can learn new tricks, and sometimes a metric person can be surprised by American cups. For my entire cooking career, I have measured baking ingredients in mass (weight) measurements: pounds, ounces, kilos and grammes have been part of my everyday kitchen practise. In my opinion, the accuracy of measuring things in weight makes the recipes easily repeatable with the same results every time.... in theory.

I've always been put off cups because the idea of having to dirty a cup when one could just measure all the ingredients in the same bowl on a scale makes no sense to me. Also, every cup of flour -- no matter how carefully you try to measure the cup exactly the same way every time -- weighs differently. An Australian cup is different to an American cup, and what do you do if you don't have a set of cups?

For all of these reasons, I have spent my entire baking career avoiding them. However, from personal experience, translating or converting cup measurements to weight measurements can fail absolutely miserably.

When I decided to make these whoopie pies, I found a traditional Amish recipe and, of course, it was measured in cups. I made the recipe using cups, and it worked perfectly! As I was scooping the cups of ingredients I was weighing them exactly. Having noted how much each cup of each ingredient weighed, I noted it for perfectly replicable results! Or, so I thought.

When I made them again using my painstakingly measured weights, they were an absolute failure. I was so confused: surely, it should have worked perfectly? I did it again with the cups, again measuring the weights of the cups, and even though this times most of the weights were completely different it still turned out perfectly like the first time.

So my main take away is: if the recipe is designed for cups, use cups. And if the recipe is designed for grammes, use grammes.

I believe now, after this wonderfully humbling experiment, that weights are not the be all and end all, and that recipes should be made using the measurements they were designed with. I'm just glad I had a set of measuring cups!

For those who are interested in making these beauties, I used Family Favourite's recipe Traditional Amish Chocolate Whoopie Pies to make these. They are moist, soft, sweet, and deeply chocolatey. The addition of egg white in the icing makes it super light and fluffy. I heartily recommend this recipe! If you want plain vanilla cakes, I have discovered that simply replacing the cocoa powder cup for cup with flour works a charm.