I have a funny story to share about the recipe. I was shopping at Whole Foods Market one day and ran into one of the partners for Cal-Ann Farms where they grow and sell live basil. She was providing samples of butter cookies made with lots of basil chopped into them. They were great, but I asked her how come she didn't use healthier flour and sugar. She said she hadn't found a recipe that tasted as great as this so they compromised quality and health value for taste. So I sent her this recipe for snickerdoodles. She played around with the recipe and came up with a new snickerdoodles recipe that is posted on Cal-Ann's website. This link, http://calannfarms.com/recipes.html will take you to their website and the recipe for basil snickerdoodles!
The recipe comes from The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook by Jean Hewitt, published by The New York Times Book Co., 1971.
Wheat Germ Snicker-doodles
1 cup soft butter (make sure to use organic butter, or better yet - raw butter freshly made from a local farm!)
1-1/2 cup brown sugar (I use Whole Unrefined Cane Sugar {formerly Rapadura}, or honey)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup wheat germ
2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup raw sugar (I use whole unrefined cane sugar - coarser than white sugar but works and tastes great!)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
3. Blend in the vanilla and wheat germ.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and stir into creamed mixture. Combine the raw sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
5. Form the dough into balls the size of a small walnut; rollin the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place two inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.
6. Cool on a rack.
Yield: About 6 dozen cookies
