Make Snickerdoodle Pancakes This Weekend

How do you eat a snickerdoodle cookie? Do you tear it in half, watching how the wrinkly center slowly cracks, like an earthquake in slow motion? Or do you just bite in, letting your front teeth sink into the soft (the good ones are always soft) cookie? Regardless of how you take down a snickerdoodle, you know you’re always here for one. Unless you don’t like cinnamon and sugar, but in that case, who are you? While a handful of snickerdoodle cookies is a winning breakfast by itself every now and then, I find that translating the flavors of this delightful, crunchy-with-sugar cookie into pancakes to be an even better way to breakfast.

Prepare a batch of your favorite pancake batter (if you’re a planner, you may already have a batch of homemade Bisquick in your fridge for these very moments). Mix in 2 teaspoons cinnamon and use 1 tablespoon vanilla extract instead of whatever the recipe told you.

Heat a nonstick pan or pancake griddle over medium, greased with a tablespoon of butter or coconut oil.

While the pan is getting hot, mix 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and ¼ cup light brown sugar with 2 tablespoons cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a bowl and set near your workstation.

Pour batter onto the pan into 3-inch silver-dollar-style rounds, flip when bubbles rise to the surface, then cook for an additional minute or so. As pancakes finish frying, place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a 200ºF oven to stay warm.

OK, all that was pretty classic pancaking, so you probably weren’t even reading that closely. Now is the time to come back to me, because this right here is what makes snickerdoodle pancakes special. When you’ve finished frying all the pancakes you plan to eat, pull the warm cakes from the oven, and lightly smash both sides of each pancake into the bowl of cinnamon sugar you made earlier and set aside. (You may have extra cinnamon sugar. Save it in a jar with a lid.)

Place the sugared pancakes back on the baking sheet, topping them with a little more cinnamon sugar if you’d like, and bump the oven heat to 350ºF. Let the pancakes toast for 3-5 minutes, then eat them with your hands, because they’re basically cookies.