Words of Danny O'Bigbelly My idea of a good time

Snickerdoodles are not hard to make, but there are some details that do not translate well into the modern era. I will do my best. Please forgive the detail in this recipe; when in doubt I will assume that you don’t know anything about baking.

Step 1: Mix together 1 cup soft shortening (at least half butter), 1.5 cups sugar, and two eggs. Soft shortening is any kind of shortening you have around, but in these days, that probably means butter. Crisco is a bit passe. Soft means that you’ve left it out on the counter until it reaches room temperature. If you microwave it, you are disqualified. Melted butter is not the same as softened butter. And don’t let thoughts of margarine cross your mind. Butter. Room temperature.

If the butter is not soft, it will take a little work to mix. Use a three-tined fork instead of spoon. In a few moments you will have a goopy substance. Resist the temptation to just eat it now. It will be tasty, but it will not be snickerdoodles.

Step 2: In a second bowl, sift together and mix 2.75 cups of flour, two teaspoons cream of tartar, one teaspoon baking soda, and 0.5 teaspoons of salt. If you don’t have a sifter (then you should get one if you’re serious about this), just mix them gently but completely for thirty seconds. Gently, or you will raise a cloud of flour. A fork works well for this, too. But not the same fork as before. That fork is gooey.

I always forget which is baking soda and which is baking powder (one comes in a box, usually, and the other in a can) so be careful. But maybe that’s just me.

Step 3: Gently pour the contents of the second bowl into the first bowl, and mix completely. Again, a fork is the right implement.

Step 4: You’ll notice I never told you to preheat the oven. I didn’t forget. It’s just not time yet. Snickerdoodles are refrigerator cookies. No kidding. You have to chill the dough before cooking.

Cover the bowl with something airtight or transfer it to a smaller container to minimize the amount of air in with the dough. Stick it in the fridge. Now wait several hours.

While you are waiting, mix into a shallow dish two tablespoons of granulated sugar and two teaspoons of cinnamon. You will need this later.

A small digression… The amount of flour necessary isn’t really 2.75 cups. That’s just an average. The precise amount depends on luck. The dough should be tacky, but not sticky. This is impossible to describe in words. It is part of the art. So back in part three, when you were mixing, you could add more flour if the mixture was too sticky. You can learn this only through practice.

Step 5: Several hours have passed. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Retrieve the dough from the fridge.

Using a spoon, dislodge a chunk of the dough about the size of a walnut (including shell). Roll in your hands (you washed them, right?) until it is round. Although the dough will be hard, it will soften in your hands. Then place the nascent cookie in the dish of sugar and cinnamon, rolling it around slightly so that one half of the cookie is encrusted with the mix. Then place on the cookie sheet, sugar side up. Cookies should be 2-3″ inches apart and the from the edge because they will spread quite a bit. Repeat until the sheet is filled.

An alternative is just to eat them raw. They are delicious this way.

Bake the cookies at 400 for 8-10 minutes. They will spread out and then start to get a sort of crinkly appearance on top. When they start to brown just *slightly* they are ready. (it is hard to tell when they begin to brown, because of the cinnamon, so an old trick is to leave one cookie, known as the canary, devoid of the sugar/cinnamon coating)

Do not overcook. Undercooking is better. As mentioned before, cooking them at all is entirely optional (if you’re OK with eating raw eggs).

Step 6: Remove from the oven. Pour a tall glass of milk. Patience, patience. The cookies will burn your mouth if you eat them too soon.

With a blunt spatula, try to remove the canary. If it smooshes up, it’s not ready. The cookies need to set (harden) slightly, which happens when they cool. If the top of your stove gets hot when the oven is on, place them somewhere else. The point is to let them cool. When they come off the sheet with just a bit of give, they’re ready. Maybe five minutes.

Step 7: Enjoy with cold milk. Repeat as necessary.

With the temperature in much of the country hovering at just slightly above nothing, it might be a good time to reflect on one of the most important social issues of our generation. But first, I need to tell you something about myself…

Although I was raised in a traditional ice-cream household, as I’ve grown older I’ve learned to tolerate different points of view, or at least accept them with civility. I think it’s fine if people eat frozen yogurt, if that’s what makes them happy. It took me a long time to overcome my deep-seated feelings about gelato and sherbet, but when I found out that my daughter likes gelato, my heart melted. There’s nothing wrong with her.

I admit that I’m still not sure how I feel about shaved ice. It makes me squirm to think about it, and I have no desire to let any of it ever touch my lips, but I really can’t see any justifiable reason why people who like shaved ice shouldn’t be permitted to marry or serve in the military. They’re really not all that different from you and me, when you get right down to it. Not in any way that matters, anyway.

Frappes, shakes, awful-awfuls, and things of that ilk — they never really bothered me. I don’t have any tendencies, at least none that I know of, for such things, but given their constant mention in the popular media, they must appeal to someone. And their relationship to ice cream is obvious.

I will admit that I do have, well, slightly unusual desires of a different nature, however. I enjoy pumpkin ice cream, and blueberry ice cream is another one of my favorites, and I’ll admit I tried almost every flavor I could get my mouth around back in college. Usually I’m just a regular chocolate-chip-cookie-dough kind of guy, but in the early summer and autumn, I like something a little more exotic. And sometimes me and the missus have a sundae or a banana split, after the kids are asleep.

What about you? What kind of ice cream do you like, and how do you like it?

All the sales in the world aren’t going to change the fact that I don’t know what to get folks for Christmas yet. My wife hasn’t given me The List(tm) yet, for one thing.

Here’s how The List(tm) works. My wife makes a sort of “dear santa” list of all the things she wants. Then I go out and buy everything on the list, wrap it up, and give it to her.

This works because she’s reasonable about it. It’s not all that exorbitant — she knows where the money is really coming from — and I’m spared any sort of decision-making, which is all a man can ask.

My kids, who only have the most vague notion of money, have already prepared multi-paged single-spaced letters to santa. They started in May and have made several drafts. Last week, they were finally put in the mail. This is where I mention that the “American Girl” Doll Company is more evil that Halliburton, BlackWater, and Exxon put together.

I, unfortunately for all who love me, never make a Christmas list until the last possible moment, and then it mostly involves random post-its in the Eddie Bauer catalog. So, I invariably get a bunch of stuff I didn’t really want, because nobody knows what I want.

Well, everyone does know what I want, but having my way with Guo Jingjing on a water bed, on the beach, surrounded by plates of nachos while serenaded by a personal concert performed by The Faces isn’t terribly practical, so I don’t hold out much hope I’ll find that under the tree.

So, why don’t I get what I want? Perhaps it’s some sort of mild watered-down anhedonia mixed with the usual guy-philosophy of “If I want something, I’ll just buy it, rather than wait for someone else to buy it for me.”

So, what about you–do you have your lists ready? Do you know what you want, and do you know what to get everyone else?

Go ahead, twist the dagger. Tell me you’ve got it all figured out.