Snickerdoodles

About a week or so ago I was in the mood for filling the biscuit tin so turned to the guru of domestic cooking, Nigella Lawson, for inspiration.  This recipe, from How to be a Domestic Goddess, was chosen largely because of the name.  It just sounds so ridiculous, so the resulting food must be fabulous, right?  Well, the biscuits that resulted were plentiful and damned tasty, though not without some tweaking for next time (see note below).  I altered the recipe slightly (adding chocolate chips), to meet the tastes of the intended eaters, and suspect other variations would work equally well, perhaps a handful of crushed up pistachios or almonds would be nice, or coconut.  Anyhoo, without further talking on my part, here it is, snickerdoodles, the most fun-sounding cookie I've come across in ages! 

250 g flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I used mixed spice)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

125 g butter
100 g caster sugar (plus 2 extra tbsp)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
dash milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Combine together flour, nutmeg, baking powder and salt.  Set aside momentarily.
3. In large bowl cream butter and 100 g sugar together until light and pale, then beat in egg and vanilla.
4. Stir in set-aside dry ingredients and chocolate chips until you have a smooth mixture.  I found mine was too dry and crumbled, so I added a dash of milk here, to help it bind together. 
5. Roll out walnut-sized balls, roll in mixture of sugar and cinnamon, and place on lined or greased baking tray.  Don't squash down - they're more like little biscuity cakes than the typical flat biscuit.  
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown.  Makes about 32 (I think I got 40 out of this batch).  

NB: These tasted really good, like little cinnamon doughnuts, but were very crumbly in texture.  Nice for dunking but possibly a bit dry for the majority of peoples' taste in biscuits.  I'm going to make these again, but next time will see how they turn out if flattened a little, to make them crisp, rather than crumbly.  We'll see...