Cocoa Snickerdoodles

Christmas is coming soon! I wanted to bake some Christmas cookies for the blog this year, but I didn't want it to interfere with the Christmas dinner series I have planned, so there are cookie recipes for the next three days.

Recipe from Food Network. 

Ingredients:

-1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

-1/4 teaspoon salt

-10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

-3/4 cup granulated sugar

-1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

-1 large egg

-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

-1/3 cup white sanding sugar

-1 3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.

Beat the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Increase the speed to medium high and beat until fluffy, about 2 more minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla; reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the flour mixture until just combined.

Combine the sanding sugar and cinnamon in a small shallow bowl. Form heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into balls with damp hands; toss in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Arrange about 3 inches apart on 2 baking sheets.

Bake at 375 or until the cookies are set around the edge, 9 to 11 minutes (in my oven they took about 13 minutes, make sure to check the cookies at 11 minutes, every oven is different.

 Let cool 2 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Based on the photos from Food Network, I really thought these would spread out a lot more than they did. I was able to bake more cookies in my second batch, once I realized they weren't going to spread out and form one giant cookie (I'm not a great baker, that has happened to me before). I liked these cookies, the chocolate and cinnamon mix reminded me a little of Mexican hot chocolate. Dave had mixed feelings about them, he thought they weren't as good as other cookies we made.