Bank holiday baking

It's a bank holiday! I've completed my DIY projects for the long weekend, which means that it's definitely time to get baking :o). Today's recipe: Snickerdoodles. It's essentially this one from Serious Eats, but without coconut oil (so in effect, it's crossed with this recipe).

Snickerdoodles
Ingredients

For the biscuits:

• 40g Unsalted butter
• 160g Salted butter*
• 200g Caster sugar
• 100g Granulated sugar**
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 Egg
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 325g Plain flour

For the coating:

• 60g Caster sugar
• 10g(!) Ground cinnamon

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy.
2. Beat in the vanilla extract and egg.
3. Incorporate the baking powder and flour.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the caster sugar and cinnamon together.
5. Roll the dough into 2-3cm diameter balls and coat in the sugar/cinnamon mix.
6. Flatten slightly onto a baking tray and bake at 200C for 5 minutes then reduce temperature to 175C and bake for a further 5 minutes.
7. Sprinkle with some of the leftover sugar/cinnamon mix. Allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes before moving.

*In case you hadn't already guessed, I ran out of butter and had to make do with what they had in the corner shop at the end of my road, which meant salted butter. Happily though, the salted butter is 2% salt, which means that this is effectively ~3g salt; pretty much what I would have added separately.
**Yes, I ran out of caster sugar as well. How did you know?

Apparently, I've angered the gods of baking recently. Apart from the (not altogether unusual) running out of key ingredients, my usual kitchen scales threw a bit of a fit and started reading around half the correct weight. Happily, I did notice, but not before thinking that I'd been cheated by the corner shop and bought a "200g" block of butter that only weighed 100g... (I've since removed the batteries and put them back in and now my scales are back to normal).

Here are the balls of dough before coating. Obviously, I didn't bake them this close together on the trays. Don't they look satisfying?

Ready for the oven. I thought I'd try a little experiment - the bottom right tray have an extra dusting of the sugar/cinnamon mixture, while the other two trays only had as much as would stick to the dough.

 I have got to get myself some bigger baking trays! But don't they look good? The ones with extra dusting have come out a little darker than the others, but aren't burnt. I think they're pretty gorgeous personally!

But as ever, what counts is how it tastes. While still warm from the oven, I snaffled my first taste - they've got a lovely texture - a great outer crunch coupled with a melt-in-the-mouth soft interior - and the cinnamon tastes great! The actual dough itself is (unsurprisingly) bland though, so it's all about the cinnamon on the outside. There's surprisingly little difference between the ones where I put an extra (thin) layer of sugar/cinnamon on the top before baking, but they're really helped by the post-baking sprinkle.

Truth be told though, I think they're actually too rich. The biscuits are so butter-and-sugar-heavy, you start feeling slightly queasy after only one and a half of them. They're nice - actually a bit better once they've cooled and are a bit firmer - but just a bit too buttery for my tastes. I suspect they'll go down a storm in the lab tomorrow though!