Sweets for the Sweet .... Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Cinnamon Swirl Frosting

These cupcakes are a few steps to make and a little time consuming but I loved how they came out.  My bestie LOVES Snickerdoodle's and when I saw this recipe on Sally's Baking Addiction I had to make them for her.

For the Snickerdoodles I found a recipe for Trisha Yearwood's Snickerdoodles on the Food Network.  I made miniature sized cookies to fit nicely on top of the cupcake.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, combine the butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar and the eggs and mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy and well combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt, and stir into the shortening mixture.
3. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon.
4. Shape the dough into 1 1/2-inch balls (1 tablespoon per ball), and roll each ball in the cinnamon-sugar. Arrange the dough balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake two sheets at a time until the edges of the cookies are set but the centers are still soft, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Transfer the cookies to wire racks for cooling. Repeat with the remaining dough balls. Store in an airtight container.

ALEXIS NOTES:  I made this recipe but instead of regular size cookies I cute the size in half.

After making the cookies I went on to making the Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Cinnamon Swirl Frosting.  

Start with the cupcakes:

• 1 and 2/3 cups (210g) all-purpose flour (careful not to overmeasure)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 and 1/2 cups (300g) granulated sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup (1 stick or 115g) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup (60g) yogurt*
• 3/4 cup (180ml) milk*
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt butter in the microwave. Whisk in 1 cup of sugar - mixture will be gritty. Stir in egg, yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract until combined. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until no lumps remain. Batter will be thick.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon together.  Set aside.  Spoon 2 scant Tablespoons of cupcake batter into each cupcake liner.  Top with 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Top with 1 heaping Tablespoon of cupcake batter, until the cupcake tins are about 3/4 full. Some of the cinnamon-sugar filling from the center layer may peek through the top layer of batter. See photo above for a visual.  Top each cupcake with 1 teaspoon more of the cinnamon-sugar.

Bake the cupcakes for 19-21 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Then onto the Frosting:

• 1 cup (2 sticks or 230g) salted or unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 3-4 cups (360-480g) confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup (60ml) heavy cream or half-and-half*
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• salt, to taste
• 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

To make the frosting, beat softened butter on medium speed with an electric or stand mixer. Beat for about 3 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add confectioners' sugar, cream, and vanilla extract with the mixer running. Increase to high speed and beat for 3 full minutes (the longer you beat, the creamier the frosting). Add more confectioners' sugar if frosting is too thin or more cream if the frosting is too thick. Taste the frosting and add salt if frosting is too sweet (1/4 teaspoon). Remove half of the frosting from the mixing bowl and transfer to a smaller mixing bowl.  Add 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon and beat until combined, about 30 seconds.

To swirl the frosting, spoon half cinnamon frosting into the piping bag and half vanilla frosting into the piping bag. See above for a visual. Pipe onto cupcakes as desired. Simply frost the cupcakes with both the vanilla and cinnamon frostings. There may be leftover frosting depending how much you use on each cupcake.

ALEXIS NOTES: I was in a hurry so I just mixed the frosting all together and frosted the cupcakes like that.

And then you assemble them:

Frost your cooled cupcakes with the frosting.  Add a mini snickerdoodle on the top of every cupcake.

They were so pretty and I was so happy to present these to her.  She said they were amazing!  Worth all the time and steps that went into them.

Thanks for stopping by!

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