Snicker Snicker Snickerdoodles, Made with Almond Flour

I've made snickerdoodles for years, usually using a Joy of Cooking recipe. I remembered making them with almond flour a while back and thinking they tasted really good but I couldn't remember which recipe I'd found online. Easy enough, I should be able to search and find it, right?

But wait, I'm finding multiple recipes and can't tell which one I made. And they all have different ratios for the ingredients. Really different in terms of almond flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and those are pretty important to cookie quality. A few even commit the cardinal sin of leaving out the cream of tartar, which is precisely what gives them their specific tangy goodness. Those recipes were nonstarters for me. They're just sugar cookies dipped in cinnamon and sugar, not true snickerdoodles.

I settled in and did what I usually do when confronted with conflicting recipes: I drew up a matrix to compare quantities, then decided what I'd go with for my version. I checked a couple of recipes that used regular flour just to compare the overall wet/dry ratios, recognizing that almond flour is higher in fat so regular flour would call for more butter or shortening.

The only good snickerdoodle is a bendy snickerdoodle. I'm not the only one who thinks so. All the recipes I consulted in my hunt for a good recipe using almond flour specifically noted the importance of having cookies that end up a bit crisped at the edges but still flexible in the middle. At least we all agree on that. That makes the baking technique important here: Preheat the oven, take the cookies out before they brown on top, and let them sit on the sheet for a bit more carryover baking from the heat in the cookie sheet before you take them off.

I'm sharing my own recipe first, then linking to the ones I used to develop this. They turned out great!

Almond Flour Snickerdoodles

Yield: Approximately 6 dozen cookies

Oven temperature: 350 degrees

1/2 c. unsalted butter

1/4 c. coconut oil (could use shortening, or all unsalted butter if you don't have either of those)

1/2 c. white sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

2  large eggs

2 t. vanilla

3 c. almond flour

2 T. tapioca starch, cornstarch, or potato starch (adds stretchiness to the dough consistency)

 2 t. cream of tartar

1 t. baking soda

1-1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. fine sea salt

To roll the dough balls in:

1/3 c. white sugar

1-1/2-2 t. cinnamon

1/8 t. nutmeg

Dash or two of cardamom (optional)

Cream together the white sugar, brown sugar, unsalted butter, and coconut oil until it looks light and fluffy. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is fully beaten in before moving on.

If you're a sifter you can sift the dry ingredients together and then add them to the batter. If you're like me you'll sprinkle them over the surface of the batter, doing your best not to leave a big clump of the leavening agents.

Mix together until blended. Don't overbeat. You should have a nice fluffy batter.

Chill the dough in the fridge for 15-30 minutes if you have time to do so. It will make it a bit easier to work with.

While the dough chills, heat the oven to 350 degrees and prep your cookie sheets with silicone mats or parchment lining.

Mix together the white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom if you're using that in a small bowl.

Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and roll these in the sugar/cinnamon mixture before placing them on the cookie sheet. They'll spread on their own into nice rounds.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes. Take them out of the oven and let them sit on the sheet for the carryover baking for another 5 minutes or so before moving them to a rack to finish cooling.

Enjoy!

Other Snickerdoodle Recipes

• Almond Flour Snickerdoodles (Grain-Free), Meaningful Eats: This recipe comes the closest to what I made but I couldn't just follow it. No cream of tartar! This omission is what sent me off in search of other sources.
• Almond Flour Snickerdoodles, Crumb Top Baking: Smaller amounts of everything; based on 2 cups of almond flour.
• Almond Flour Snickerdoodles, Gluten-Free, Vegan Richa: I'd try this one if I needed to make a vegan batch but I'd have to add cream of tartar. Even smaller quantities; based on 1 cup of almond flour.
• Keto Snickerdoodle Cookies, How to This and That: If you want to make a batch with an artificial sweetener this one might work for you.
• Soft & Thick Snickerdoodles, Sally's Baking Addiction: I turn to Sally pretty often. This is another 3-cup recipe, made with regular flour instead of almond flour.
• Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe, Show Me the Farm: Made with 3 cups of regular flour.

Related Reading

• Seriously Good Oatmeal Cookie Recipe
• Classic All-Bran/Bran Buds Muffin Recipe: Best Bran Muffins Ever
• Keep that Streak Going: #30DaysOf Something that Matters to You (no recipes, but a peek at my snickerdoodle past)