thank me later

I used to bake something for the residents once a month... 

But then I had a baby. (that's the excuse for everything isn't it?) 

I really want to start doing that again... And so my idea has been this big plan for weeks. And this weekend I saw my plan through. In all it's glory. Because Kyle was on call this weekend (oh how I hate it!) So I decided to conquer the evil day of loneliness with sugar.

Bourbon smoked sugar.

You're welcome world.

So... not going to lie... When my Aunt Jules gave me this jar of Woodford Reserve bourbon smoked sugar in my bag of Kentucky Proud goodies, I was like... Cool. What am I going to do with it?

Well friends, while I was rifling through one of my junk cabinets and saw the jar a year later, it dawned on me.

Snickerdoodles.

So I found a Snickerdoodle recipe with good reviews and tweaked it a bit. And I dubbed the results Kentucky Snickerdoodles.  So here's how to make them:

Kentucky Snickerdoodles
adapted from Trisha Yearwood's Snickerdoodles

Wet mix
1 stick butter. Room temp
1/2 C Crisco
2 eggs. Room temp
1 C sugar
1/2 C light brown sugar

Dry mix
2 3/4 C All Purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

The good stuff
3 Tbsp plain sugar
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

A small separate bowl of bourbon smoked sugar.

• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• In a large bowl, beat the wet ingredients until smooth.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. 
• Gradually mix the dry mix into the wet.
• I like to line my cookie sheet with parchment paper. No mess to clean up and never a stuck cookie to scrape off.
• Now for the important part. Make the cookie dough balls. I use a cookie dough scoop. It's about a tablespoon.  Dip one side in the bourbon smoked sugar and then roll the whole thing in the cinn/sugar mix. Place dough 2 inches apart with bourbon sugar side up.
• Bake for 9 minutes.  (They will look all puffy and not quite done like my 2nd photo but will shrink down like my 3rd)
• Let cool on a wire rack.

Makes 3-4 dozen soft, amazingly chewy cookies.

These would be just as delicious without the bourbon smoked sugar.  It isn't a necessity but it does add just a little something special. Mostly an extra crunch that could be achieved with much cheaper turbinado sugar.  But then you couldn't say you were all fancy and used bourbon smoked sugar like me.