Here is my reader favorite recipe for soft and thick snickerdoodles. These soft-baked snickerdoodle cookies only require about 30 minutes start to finish!
Snickerdoodles are a timeless classic, just like a good batch of chocolate chip cookies or peanut butter cookies. Like drop sugar cookies wrapped in a cinnamon sugar hug, these irresistible cookies never go out of style. My recipe yields the softest and thickest snickerdoodles you’ll ever taste. I like to call them snickerdoodle pillows because they are perfectly fat and puffy! Much too often you’re left with flat, crispy, and thin cookies. The only remedy is to submerge them in a tall glass of milk. But what about starting out with a kitchen tested recipe for soft-baked snickerdoodles? You’ve come to the right place. 🙂
How to Make Soft Snickerdoodles
How do you make snickerdoodles puffy and soft? The secret’s in the ratio of butter to leavener to flour to egg. Don’t use shortening here; you’ll miss the flavor of butter. Slightly under-baking the snickerdoodles also guarantees a softer cookie. Take them out of the oven after about 10-11 minutes. This will keep the interior of the cookie soft and chewy.
Why is Cream of Tartar in Snickerdoodles?
Instead of baking powder, use cream of tartar and baking soda in snickerdoodles. Sure, you could use 2 teaspoons of baking powder instead of the cream of tartar + baking soda, but then you won’t really have a snickerdoodle. Cream of tartar adds a unique tangy flavor to the cookie, which sets it apart from sugar cookies and makes it a classic snickerdoodle. You also use it for the best flavor in maple pecan snickerdoodles. It’s absolutely delicious!
No Cookie Dough Chilling!
Great news! You can skip the cookie dough chilling step with this snickerdoodle recipe. There’s enough flour in this cookie dough to create a strong and sturdy cookie without the crutch of chilling the dough first. There’s also no fancy-pants ingredients required. These snickerdoodles are EASY. Shortbread cookies are another easy no chill recipe to keep in your back pocket.
A medium cookie scoop is helpful to divide up the dough. Roll each dough ball in cinnamon sugar, and arrange on a lined baking sheet:
These snickerdoodle cookies aced the true “soft test” meaning they remained soft on day 2! In fact, they were still soft on day 4. (And I’m surprised there are any leftover by that point, but I was trying to make a point!) Since they remain so soft, snickerdoodles are the perfect cookie for gift-giving. I know there are many snickerdoodle lovers out there!
If you’re looking for other snickerdoodle favorites, here are my pumpkin snickerdoodles, peanut butter snickerdoodles, chocolate snickerdoodles, and snickerdoodle blondies. And are you craving cake? Here’s my snickerdoodle cake & swirled snickerdoodle cupcakes recipes.
This recipe also joins 30+ others in my collection of Quick Dessert Recipes—ready in 1 hour or less!
Soft & Thick Snickerdoodles
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 26-28 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Here is my reader favorite recipe for soft and thick snickerdoodles. These soft-baked snickerdoodle cookies only require about 30 minutes start to finish! No dough chilling required.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar*
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 and 1/3 cup (267g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Topping
- 1/3 cup (70g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats (always recommended for cookies). Set aside.
- Make the cookies: Whisk the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a medium bowl.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and granulated sugar together on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high speed until combined. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 different parts. The dough will be thick.
- Make the topping: Combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl.
- Roll cookie dough into balls, about 1.5 Tablespoons (35g) of cookie dough each. I recommend this cookie scoop. Roll the dough balls in cinnamon-sugar topping. Sprinkle extra cinnamon-sugar on top if desired. Arrange 3 inches apart on the baking sheets.
- Bake cookies for 10 minutes. The cookies will be very puffy and soft. When they are still very warm, lightly press down on them with the back of a spoon or fork to help flatten them out. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies remain soft & fresh for 7 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: There are a few options here! First, you can prepare the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Make sure that you let it come to room temperature before rolling and baking the cookies. You can also freeze the cookie dough balls. Roll the dough into balls then freeze the balls for up to 2-3 months. You can freeze the cookie dough balls with the cinnamon sugar coating or without, but I recommend freezing without the topping. When you are ready to bake, remove the balls from the freezer, let sit for 30 minutes, pre-heat the oven, then roll into topping. You can also freeze the baked cookies for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Cream of Tartar: Cream of tartar is required for this recipe. Please see the text of the post for more information.
- Extra Egg Yolk: To bring this dough together so it isn’t quite as crumbly use 1 large egg, plus 1 extra large egg yolk. I’ve been doing this recently and the snickerdoodles taste even softer, moister, and richer.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I love this recipe, and will be baking it a lot in the future!
The flavor was perfect, the sweet level was right on, and my favorite part was the texture.
Thanks, Sally!
These should be called Thickerdoodles. 🙂
cookies may look underbaked but do not bake over 10 minutes!!!!!!!! they go from soft and delish to very hard in a matter of a minute 🙁
Hello! My mom and I have been baking these together every year since we discovered this wonderful recipe- and it is the biggest hit with our family! Absolutely reccomend to everyone. I had a quick question however, as this is my first year baking them alone- when the recipe says 1 egg plus 1 yolk, does it mean 2 eggs? I was a bit confused on that but otherwise they are wonderful. Thank you!
Hi Indy! So glad you loved these. It means one whole egg (yolk and white) plus just the yolk from a second egg.
Can you make large batches of the dough and freeze or refrigerate for future batches? I want to make my gift cookies now but have some dough ready to go for Christmas Day, too.
You bet! See recipe notes for freezing instructions.
I was planning to make a double batch today, but as I was preparing my dry ingredients I realized that I added baking powder instead of baking soda 🙁 I put the mixture in a bag for now. But what will happen if I use the baking powder instead of baking soda?
Hi Cathy! You can read more about the differences between the two in this post. We’re unsure how they’ll turn out with the swap.
I was disappointed by these. They taste great and were soft, but they were not thick. I even followed the suggestion from the flat cookies post and froze the rolled cookies for 10 minutes. They were nice and puffy when they came out of the oven but as they cooled they went flat. One question Sally. I use King Arthur Flour which weighs 120 grams per cup. Your recipe says 3 cups Is 375 grams but using KAF flour, it is only 360 grams. I even called King Arthur and they told me to use 360 grams. Do you think that the lesser amount of flour caused insufficient gluten to make the cookies hold their structure and remain thick?
Hi Cathy, thank you so much for trying these– if you used less flour (even 15g!), the cookie dough may not soak up as much liquid (butter in this case) and may over-spread. The weights I give with my recipes are how I test them, so I recommend following them for best results. I measure 125g per 1 cup of spooned and level flour. For this particular recipe, what may work as well is removing that extra egg yolk. So just use 1 egg. That will help keep the cookies thicker as well.
This is the recipe that made me fall in love with baking a few years ago. I’ve made dozens of Sally recipes since then and just made these again and I’m kicking myself for not making these more often! The texture of these are amazing. I rolled a few in Speculaas spice mix from King Arthur and they were also delicious! I froze most of the dough for Christmas and wish I’d made two batches!
what about high 5000′ altitude, any adjustment?
Hi Mary, I wish we could help, but have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
Despite all the favorable reviews, I wasn’t a fan of these. They tasted floury and plain. I noticed they had more flour than another popular online snickerdoodle recipe and it may not have helped that the flour was measured by volume not weight.
My mixture was like powder. I had to add an extra egg in order to even form a ball. Any ideas as to why? Followed directions to a T.
Hi Heather! How strange. How did you measure your flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
It’s the cream of tartar, you’re right!!! Yum!
I live in Idaho so the altitude is different than other states. Does this recipe need to be altered in any way so i can get the same outcome with the cookies?
Hi Grace, I wish we could help, but we have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
I’m higher than Idaho, and I follow this recipe perfectly and it was fine.
I’m a chocolate chip cookie fan myself, but my husband and son LOVE snickerdoodles. This recipe won me over, too. I’ve made it 4 times and have produced PERFECT cookies each time. I love that they aren’t overly sweet and the texture is superb, a little chew crisp on the top, soft in the middle.
I doubled this recipe and made a boatload of them yesterday for a cookie swap. SO yummy. I used Country Crock Plant Butter (w/ avocado oil) since my son is allergic to dairy and had no issues at all with the dough or cookies. I love how the recipe is so specific about how long to mix. Just takes even more of the guesswork out. One thing I noticed was some inconsistency across batches. Idk if it was me making the sizes slightly different or what, but some came out puffy and I used the “spoon technique,” but others came out quite flat and didn’t need that. Next day and they’re still SO soft though. Thanks again!
I love your recipes! If I wanted to half the recipe, what would you recommend I do for the egg portion? Thanks!
Thanks Zahra! I would try just using 1 egg yolk.
I want to make these for a cookie exchange and one of the ladies has celiac. Can I substitute gluten-free flour 1:1?
Hi Annie, we haven’t tested these with gluten free flour but let us know if you try it!
These turned out amazing! I did give a batch of these made with gluten free flour away and she said they were delicious. This is definitely the only snickerdoodle cookie recipe I will be using.
Hi Sally
I want to say I love all your recipes. I noticed this recipe is different then the one I printed a few years ago, Did you change the amount of cinnamon in the cookie? The one from a few years ago has 2 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon in the cookie and now this one says only 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. The topping has its own cinnamon and sugar separate amounts. Thank you for making my baking fun and tasty.
Hi Christine, I reduced the amount of cinnamon in the dough. There’s plenty of cinnamon flavor in the dough and topping with these amounts, but feel free to add more to the dough if desired!
This is the most amazing Snickerdoodle recipe I have ever made and have been making them for over 30 years. Thank you so much for a recipe with lots of extra tips which made this extremely easy to follow and duplicate. These cookies are soft and so delicious, we cannot stop eating them. You can bet I will be checking out all your other cookie recipes and trying different versions of my same old cookies.
Just made these in my finicky, cheap apartment oven that never stays at one temperature for an entire baking time…and they STILL turned out incredible! Thank you for sharing. Making more tomorrow and taking to Thanksgiving. <3
Has anyone done these with dairy free butter?
I just made these today and they are amazing! So soft, chewy and delicious! Thank you for sharing your recipes!!
These cookies turned out so amazing! They are so fluffy and super easy to make, Thank you for this recipe! <3
Hello, I baked these yesterday and they were sooooo goood I love them they were gone by today, super yummy I want to make way more for next month and my question is, if I want to make let’s say 3 bathes is it okay for me to double everything x3 ? It would make it way faster but I also don’t want it to change the texture, flavor or anything. So would it change anything?
Hi Samantha, You can double this recipe with no changes. Enjoy!
they look raw when they come out of the oven but give it a bit to solidify and they are delicious for days!
My family loves these! My only question is that mine turned out flat, they weren’t thick like they are in the picture. Any thoughts as to why they would be flat?
Hi Shannon, For help troubleshooting cookies that spread, visit the post 10 Guaranteed Tips to Prevent Cookies from Spreading.
I couldn’t figure out how to leave a comment, or ask a question, so I just replied to this reply. I’ve made this recipe 2 days in a row and they are sooo delicious and addicting, BUT the first day I made them, they turned out perfect in every way. The second day, today, they turned out great, except they turned out a lot smaller than the first batch and I rolled the balls pretty much what I thought was the same. Could the time creaming/beating the butter and sugar have anything to do with that. I think I may have beaten the second batch longer than the first. Thank you for your comment/advice.
you either overly melted your butter or your baking powder is expired.
I’m starting to bake my Xmas cookies and my usual Snickerdoodle recipe results in flat cookies so I’d like to try this recipe instead. My question is whether or not I could use salted butter instead of unsalted, and if yes, what would I decrease the salt measurement to? And would the butter measurement still be the same for salted? Thank!
Hi Donna, If using salted butter, reduce the added salt to 1/8 teaspoon. Hope this recipe is a hit for you!
These turned out great! They were super easy to make and took no time at all. The only thing is that they tasted a little bit salty. I recommend cutting back on the salt a little bit because it made it not as enjoyable.
The best snickerdoodles I’ve ever had and super easy to make – thanks for sharing!!! I’ll have to use this recipe for Christmas snickerdoodles this year, they’re so fluffy and sweet!
Love these cookies, and I’m planning on making them a third time, but I have a question. My friend’s sister is deathly allergic to cinnamon, what alternative should I use instead of cinnamon. Also if I were to not use cinnamon or an alternative at all, would they make good sugar cookies instead?
Hi Sylvia, you could try replacing the cinnamon with a similar warm spice like cardamom, ginger, or nutmeg, but the cookies won’t have that signature snickerdoodle taste without the cinnamon. How about our drop sugar cookies recipe instead? Very similar texture and equally delicious!
I can’t wait to try this recipe! It sounds delicious! I’m just curious, but I’ve seen quite a few snickerdoodle recipes that have no cinnamon in the dough…just on the outside. Also, using shortening instead of butter. Any thoughts on these differences?
I made these for the first time last night and they turned out AMAZING! The cream of tarter really does make such a huge difference. It’s what sets Snickerdoodles apart from just regular cinnamon sugar cookies. I also loved how fluffy and soft they were! 10/10 this is now my go-to recipe for Snickerdoodles and I can’t wait to share them. Thanks Sally!
Do you happen to have any recommendations for how to pack cookies to mail them? I know they won’t be perfect when they get to their destination but I think if packed well they could still hold up well enough given how long they stay soft.
Hi Abbey, so glad you loved these snickerdoodles! For packing, see this post on how to ship cookies — hope you find it helpful!
I tried these tonight for the first time and followed all the directions stated above. My cookies turned out so soft and delicious only thing I noticed is that they were pale in color. It didn’t affect the taste just didn’t look toasty like the picture above. What could have caused a lighter color?
These are dangerously delicious!
I loved these snickerdoodles cannot stop eating them! I love to bake and this is the most perfect thing to back! Happy Thanksgiving
What kind of pan do you have? I doubled the recipe so I was rotating three different pans. Two are dark and one is a stainless nordicware one. All three were lined with parchment paper, but the ones on the lighter pan came out a LOT lighter. I gave them a couple extra minutes, but didn’t want to overdo it and lose the softness.
Darker pans tend to attract more heat, creating a darker color on your cookies more likely than a lighter pan 🙂