Snickerdoodles without Cream of Tartar

These Snickerdoodles without Cream of Tartar are soft and chewy with sweet cinnamon flavor. Total crowd-pleasers! 

Jump to:

• Why Make This Recipe
• 🥗 Ingredients
• 🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
• 🧐 Recipe FAQs for Snickerdoodles without Cream of Tartar
• 👩‍🍳 Expert Tips
• Other Delicious Cookie Recipes
• 📖 Recipe Card
• More About Molly
• Comments

Why Make This Recipe

• Delicious flavor: Snickerdoodles are a classic cookie, and are a perfect addition to any cookie tray!
• Great for make-ahead: These cookies can easily be made in advance, and stay soft and chewy for several days after baking.
• Easy ingredients: No cream of tartar? No problem! Read on for the easy trick to replace the leavening and slightly tangy flavor that comes from the cream of tartar in a traditional snickerdoodle recipe.  

🥗 Ingredients

• Sugar: This recipe uses two types of sugar, both granulated and light brown sugar. You could replace the light brown sugar with dark brown sugar for a slightly deeper flavor. Alternatively, you could choose to use all granulated sugar instead of adding in the brown sugar. 
• Butter: I like to use unsalted butter and add salt to the recipe, but if you only have salted butter, you can use that, and reduce the added salt to ¼ teaspoon. You can also replace up to half the butter with shortening.
• Lemon Juice: This is key to the replacement of the cream of tartar, so please don’t leave it out. If you don’t have lemon juice however, try substituting white vinegar. 
• Flour: These cookies use a classic all-purpose flour. I have not tested these with any flour substitutes—if you do, please comment below and let me know. 
• Cinnamon: The classic Snickerdoodle recipe calls for the cookie balls to be rolled in cinnamon sugar. You could add a little cinnamon to the batter as well if you want to double down on the cinnamon flavor. 

🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions

Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat 1 cup granulated sugar, ½ cup packed brown sugar, and 1 cup softened butter together on medium-high speed. Beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl as necessary. 

Then add in 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, and 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla. Beat for 1 more minute, until well-combined. Whisk 2 ¾ cups flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt together in another bowl. Use a sturdy spatula or wooden spoon to stir the dry ingredients into the batter, just until combined. 

Put batter into the refrigerator for 15 minutes. While batter is chilling, mix ¼ cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon together in a small bowl. Scoop batter into tablespoon-sized balls, then roll balls into cinnamon-sugar mixture. A 1.5-inch cookie scoop makes this super easy. 

Place on a small sheet pan or plate, and chill for another 15-30 minutes. While cookie balls are chilling, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. When cookie balls are chilled, place on the baking sheets, 2 inches apart. 

Bake for 12-14 minutes, switching the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through. The snickerdoodles are done when they are no longer raw in the middle, and are very lightly browned around the edges.

Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes, then move onto a cooling rack. When one of the baking sheets is cool, line again with parchment paper and bake the last dozen cookies. 

🧐 Recipe FAQs for Snickerdoodles without Cream of Tartar

👩‍🍳 Expert Tips

For this easy snickerdoodle recipe, you can absolutely use a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer for this cookie dough. Put the hand mixer on high, and know that it will take longer to get to the right consistency. Try multiplying the mixing time by 1.5 or 2. 

Don’t overmix your dough if you like a chewy cookie. The more you beat the mixture, the cakier you cookies will turn out. 

Note that when you first add the lemon juice to the batter, the batter may look a little curdled. Don’t worry, it will smooth out as you mix it. 

The more you chill the dough for this recipe, the thicker your cookies will be. We like 30 minutes overall so that the cookies rise a little, but are still chewy. If you want them to rise higher, add more chill time. On the contrary, if you like flat, very chewy cookies, you can skip chilling the dough. 

Note that some recipes call for pressing down the dough balls gently to flatten—this step is unnecessary with this recipe, and will result in very flat cookies. 

Other Delicious Cookie Recipes

If you love cookies as much as we do, you may want to check out some of our other delicious cookie recipes. Maybe you're a shortbread cookie fan too? Don't miss our Cacao Nib Hazelnut Cookies, our Strawberry Shortbread Cookies, or our Lemon Shortbread Cookies.

And of course you can find all sorts of baked goods like these in our Dessert Archive too:

If you try this easy snickerdoodle recipe, I would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to me.

And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to my newsletter. I'd love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!

Instagram Users: Now that you've made these snickerdoodle cookies without cream of tartar, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!