Every winter break, my high school marching band boarded five big charter buses and drove south for a trip. One year we participated in the Rose Parade; another two, we competed in the Fiesta Bowl marching band competition held the day before the football game.
On the way home from those big events, we always stopped at Disneyland. Our band director arranged for us to march down Main Street and weave around the rides, playing holiday tunes for all of the theme park guests to enjoy.
Before and after the parade, we ran around the park, standing in lines for Pirates of the Caribbean, screaming on the Matterhorn, and spinning wilding in circles on the Tea Cups.
We really worked up an appetite dashing between rides to fit in as many as we possibly could, so Disneyland kindly gave us each a $10 meal voucher in exchange for the parade. Most years, we spent it on the world’s best pizza from Pizza Port (that crust… ohmygosh it’s the softest and chewiest you’ll ever eat!), while a few kids branched out and bought turkey legs bigger than my head.
One year, we craved sugar and spent our entire vouchers at the Blue Ribbon Bakery and Candy Palace on Main Street. We watched the workers slicing fudge and dipping caramel apples, then browsed through the various lollipops and chocolates. But my favorites were always the brownies and cookies from the bakery, especially the snickerdoodles. They were incredibly soft and chewy… And bigger than my entire hand. I never shared!
When those memories resurfaced this past week while watching a commercial for Disneyland on TV, a fierce craving for snickerdoodles hit. As I pulled out the butter from the fridge and spotted the eggnog carton, I decided to make my own holiday variation and created these Eggnog Snickerdoodles instead!
They’re cookie #2 of Cookie Week on Amy’s Healthy Baking! We made rainbow chocolate chip cookies before—the butteriest healthy cookies you’ll ever try—and still to come are minty, spiced, and classic treats. Stay tuned!
My #1 Tip for these Eggnog Snickerdoodles is to make sure you measure the flour correctly. Use one of two options: a light hand with the spoon-and-level method or a kitchen scale. I highly recommend the latter! This is the inexpensive kitchen scale that I own, and I use it to make every recipe on this blog. It’s worth its weight in gold because it ensures that your baked goods turn out with the perfect taste and texture every time!
In these cookies, I completely replaced the eggs with eggnog. And then added a little bit more. I wanted to make sure you really tasted the festive drink! I actually tested these with Silk’s holiday nog, which is completely vegan friendly. If you go that route and replace the butter with Earth Balance Buttery Spread, these cookies are entirely vegan too. (And perfect for my brother who’s allergic to eggs!)
With ¼ cup of eggnog, the cookie dough is very wet, so chilling is mandatory. I’ve tried chilling for 30 minutes and for up to 2 hours. Either way, the cookie dough never fully stiffens, so rolling it is going to be a somewhat sticky affair.
My best advice? Use a spoon and spatula (or a cookie scoop!) to drop a rounded mound of cookie dough directly into the spiced sugar. Turn the cookie dough around until it’s covered; then roll it between your palms to shape it into a ball. That thin layer of sugar on the outside mostly prevents it from sticking to your hands.
Because I just love cinnamon and nutmeg, I dropped mine back into the sugar to roll again. Seriously you guys… Do the double roll! It creates a cute glittery coating on the cookies, and it adds a tiny crunchy touch, which beautifully complements the extra chewy insides.
I brought two dozen of these Eggnog Snickerdoodles to my guy’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as I set them down, one of his uncles immediately grabbed three from the plate to much on while we waited for the turkey to rest.
I’m not the only one with no self-control around these… They’re that good!
And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! ?) I’d love to see your snickerdoodles and feature them in my Sunday Spotlight series!
| Eggnog Snickerdoodles | | Print |
- for the cookies
- 1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour (measured correctly)
- ¾ tsp cornstarch
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp (28) unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup (60mL) light or dairy-free eggnog, warmed to room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (48g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (52g) light brown sugar
- for the coating
- 3 tbsp (36g) granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- To prepare the cookies, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, eggnog, and vanilla. Stir in the granulated and brown sugars. Add in the flour mixture, stirring until barely incorporated. Chill the cookie dough for at least 30 minutes, or up to 3 hours. (If chilling longer than 3 hours, cover the cookie dough with plastic wrap to avoid letting it dry out.)
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- To prepare the coating, stir together the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl.
- Using a spoon and spatula or a cookie scoop, drop one portion of cookie dough into rounded mounds in the bowl of spiced sugar. Rotate it until its fully coated; then roll it between your palms into a ball. Drop it back in the spiced sugar, coat again, and place on the prepared baking sheet. If the cookie dough was chilled longer than 1 hour, flatten the cookie dough balls slightly.
- Bake the cookies at 350°F for 9-12 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Make sure the eggnog is warmed to room temperature. Otherwise, it will quickly chill the melted butter and make it re-solidify. If this happens, microwave the mixture (in a microwave-safe bowl!) for 8-12 seconds, or until the butter re-melts.
For a vegan version, substitute Earth Balance Buttery Spread in place of the butter, and use holiday “nog” from Silk or So Delicious.
If the cookies did not spread while baking, there was too much flour in the dough. It's very important to measure the flour correctly using the spoon and level method or a kitchen scale. If the flour is scooped directly from the container using a measuring cup, you'll end up with 1.5 times as much flour in your cookie dough, which will make the cookies dry and cakey, as well as prevent the cookies from spreading.
If your cookie dough seems too dry in comparison the cookie dough in the video (in the blog post above the recipe), mix in additional eggnog 1 teaspoon at a time until your cookie dough resembles the texture of the cookie dough in the video after chilling. You can skip the chilling step and bake the cookies right away.
{vegan, low fat, low calorie}
More eggnog cookie recipes created by other food bloggers…
Soft and Chewy Eggnog Cookies by Life, Love & Sugar
Eggnog Cookies with Eggnog Glaze by Baked Bree
Eggnog Sugar Cookies by Crème de la Crumb
Melt-In-Your-Mouth Eggnog Cookies by Cooking Classy
Delicious! I made 3 dozen of these for Christmas and each batch turned out amazing.
I’m so glad you enjoyed these snickerdoodles Alissa! 🙂 A belated Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!
Do u recommend freezing or not
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Jeannie! I definitely do not recommend freezing these cookies. Unfortunately, the sugar coating doesn’t thaw well at all. I’d love to hear what you think if you try them! 🙂
This recipe does not print using your print link nor does it print using my print function. Can you fix this?
Meant to rate this recipe a 5 star.
I’m honored that you’d rate this recipe as 5 stars, Pamela! That means so much! 🙂
To print my recipes, simply click on the blue printer icon in the top right corner of the recipe box. That will bring up a printable PDF in either a new browser tab or new browser window.
Printing typically works best from a regular computer. It’s also possible to print from mobile devices! However, some mobile devices (especially Android phones) occasionally experience difficulties. So if that happens to you on your mobile device, then instead of briefly tapping the printer icon once, try tapping and holding down on it. That should bring up a menu where one of the options is “Open in New Tab” (or similar wording). If you tap on that, then the printable PDF should appear in a new tab! (My tech team and I are working on fixing that issue that sometimes happens with Android phones, but the trick I just mentioned should work in the meantime!)
This was so easy to make and was excellent! Thank you for share! i like this
I’m so glad you enjoyed these snickerdoodles Therese!
I was so excited to find this recipe. I made 2 batches today in preparation for Christmas. Each batch was made separately (because I thought of it after the fact). When I removed both bowls of dough from the frig, both were so sticky I couldn’t get the dough to form a ball or even get rolled in the sugar mixture. I tried baking 3 cookies by dropping some of the dough on the parchment paper but no such luck – Sickerdoodles I did not have. So, I decided maybe if I added a little flour, the dough would stiffen. Well that worked but making the dough into cookies wasn’t to be. Both doughs were still very sticky. I stared at the bowls of dough for a few minutes and decided to pour both into a 9 x 8 baking dish, increase the heat to 375 and cook it all together like a shallow cake. To my surprise, it turned out pretty nice! I used the sugar mixture as a topping before and after I finished baking. All in all it was pretty good!! (But I am very curious why my cookies failed if you could send me some input)
I’m so honored that you tried making this recipe Pat! If the cookie dough was that sticky, then you actually made it correctly! This is why Step 4 instructs to drop the cookie dough into the cinnamon sugar using a spoon + spatula or cookie scoop, completely cover it with the coating, and then roll it into a ball. The cinnamon sugar coating should prevent the cookie dough from sticking to your hands when you roll it between your palms! 🙂 Is that what you did when you tried to make the cookies? Or did you try to roll the cookie dough into balls before ever dropping them in the cinnamon sugar?
Regardless, I’m so glad that baking it in a cake pan turned out so well! Thank you for taking the time to let me know — I always love hearing about fun recipe tweaks like this that turn out deliciously!
Hey there! Just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that this recipe is a winner! I’ve used it for a holiday Christmas cookie swap two years in a row and always get rave reviews—I’m now known in the office as the “Snickernoggles” girl! I find the cookies come out best when pressed down gently, regardless of how long I chill them. The flavors are spot-on! Great work 🙂
Oh my goodness, Jenna!! You just made my entire WEEK! That means so much to me! ♡ I’m so glad you and your loved ones have been enjoying these eggnog snickerdoodles so much. I love your “snickernoggles” title too — that’s so fun! 🙂 Thank you so much for taking the time to share!
These cookies sound delicious! I was expecting to see cream of tartar in the ingredient list like most snickerdoodles have. Is there a reason there’s no cream of tartar? I definitely want to try these out this season!
I’m honored that you’d want to try this recipe, Katie! The main reason I omitted the cream of tartar was because I was trying to simplify the ingredients list, and I realized many people don’t necessarily keep it in their pantries or want to buy it, just to make one recipe. Anything I can do to make the holidays less stressful or complicated for people! 😉 I’d love to hear what you think of these eggnog snickerdoodles if you try making them!
How many does each batch make, roughly?
The number of cookies this recipe yields is included directly underneath the recipe title in the recipe box! I know it can be easy to miss. 😉 I’d love to hear what you think of these eggnog snickerdoodles if you try making them, Tina!
These sound yummy. Has anyone made them with Rum or Burbon in the Eggnog? Any impact to flavor?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe! I haven’t personally tried either of those modifications, so I can’t vouch for the results.
If you end up making these snickerdoodles, I’d love to hear what you think of them!
I’m having trouble finding low-fat or dairy free eggnog. Is there any specific reason as to why it needs to be those options?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe, Sarah! Light eggnog and dairy-free eggnog tend to be thinner in consistency than classic/traditional eggnog. You’re welcome to try substituting regular eggnog, if that’s all you can find, but you may need to tweak the amount in order to achieve the same cookie dough consistency and texture in your fully baked cookies since it’s usually thicker and creamier.
If you live in the US, then I’ve had really good luck finding dairy-free eggnog at Target! They often stock Califia Farms and Silk (my two “go to” brands!), and Target is also really good about displaying what products are in stock at each individual location on their website (so you don’t end up wasting a trip!). Just wanted to mention that in case that’s helpful! 🙂
If you do end up making these snickerdoodles, I’d love to hear what you think of them too!