Parks Canada Heritage Gourmet Recipes

Snickerdoodles

These cookies can be cooked over a campfire or on a stove at home.

Origin: Fort Wellington National Historic Site
Region: Ontario
Period: 19^th Century
Course: Desserts and Baked Goods

Ontario Historical Society visits Fort Wellington
© Parks Canada

Although the soldiers stationed at Fort Wellington did not make snickerdoodles, interpreters at the national historic site make these cookies to illustrate several themes. Snickerdoodles help interpreters talk about the soldiers' varied diet and the archaeological excavation of the historic latrine – which is how we have learned about their diet. Making the cookies also helps Parks Canada staff recreate the feeling of the historic cookhouse, which is one of the fort’s few missing buildings. Finally, interpreters will explain that sugar was a treat for people in the 19th century, especially soldiers as it was not a part of their daily rations, so cookies of any kind would have been a special treat at Fort Wellington.

Snickerdoodles

Ingredients:

• 3 cups | 445 g flour
• 1 tsp | 5 g baking soda
• A pinch of | 2 g salt
• 1 ½ cups | 300 g white sugar
• 50 g / 2 tbsp butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp | 5 g cinnamon to taste
• 125g | ½ cup raisins as desired

Directions:

• Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Roll into 1-inch balls and flatten. Grease a cast iron griddle and heat over hot coals, or on your stovetop. Put the snickerdoodles onto the preheated griddle and flip until golden on both sides.

  Chef's tip: be sure your pan is not too hot, or else the outside of the snickerdoodles will cook too quickly.

Credits:

Recipe tested by Chef David Fairbanks, Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism

Adapted from a recipe in the book Cook Not Mad: Or Rational Cookery, published in 1832.