This recipe originally started as a snickerdoodle cookie recipe where the traditional all purpose flour is swapped for healthy, whole grain soft white wheat flour e.g. pima club<\/a>, white sonora<\/a>, soft white wheat<\/a>; but it turned into a donut recipe with a classic snickerdoodle flavor of light cinnamon sweetness along with some wheat nuttiness. It was also an experiment into chilling whole wheat cookie-donut dough overnight versus one hour, and using baking powder versus baking soda.<\/p>\n TLDR<\/strong>: Overnight chilling of the dough made for a smoother donut with delicious nutty bran flavor and soft texture. Baking powder makes a loftier, rounder, and slightly tangier \u201csnickerdonut\u201d rather than a flat cookie.<\/p>\n The ingredient framework comes from a recipe I printed out years ago that is no longer online. Shout out to \u201cWarren\u201d who submitted Lighter Snickerdoodles<\/em> to Allrecipes some time before 2014. Most snickerdoodle recipes use shortening and whole eggs, but this recipe uses butter, cream cheese and an egg plus two egg whites. The resulting cookie is indeed lighter, and as I discovered this week, the lightness can go so far as to turn the cookies into donuts.<\/p>\n Clockwise from top left: salt, baking powder, cream of tartar, pima club wheat, butter and cream cheese, sugar, 1 egg + 2 whites<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve made Warren\u2019s snickerdoodles with whole grain flour many times\u2014the cookies come out thicker than with all purpose flour, but this time the cookies came out very tall and round. Figuring I\u2019d done something wrong, I made a second batch\u2026and they were still tall. This is when I did the chilling experiment, only refrigerating the dough for an hour, rather than overnight. As noted above, these \u201csnickerdonuts\u201d had a less silky texture.<\/p>\n Cracked tops are true to style<\/p>\n<\/div>\n My family loved these round treats, and my son actually thought my goal was to make donut holes. He happily took a bunch to his college move-in last week. So with those rave reviews, I decided to roll with it and call them donuts\u2026and as soon as I began the writeup, I realized what had happened: I\u2019d been using baking powder and not baking soda as per my recipe (and basically all snickerdoodle recipes).<\/p>\n Baking Soda:<\/strong> Traditionally used in snickerdoodles and many other cookie recipes, baking soda reacts with acids e.g. cream of tartar, causing CO2 bubbles to form and the cookie to expand and often then collapse a bit. Baking soda has a pH of 8.3-8.5 that balances acids in the dough.<\/p>\n Baking Powder:<\/strong> Baking powder is baking soda + fast and slow acting acids + a filler like cornstarch for stabilization. Used in this recipe, the baking powder sustains a longer upward rise. Baking powder has a neutral pH of 7 so combined with acidic cream of tartar, the \u201csnickerdonuts\u201d have a little tang.<\/p>\n When I made a third batch with baking soda instead of baking powder, the treats were indeed a bit flatter, but I missed the extra tang from the baking powder version. To make truly flatter snickerdoodles with this recipe, use baking soda and<\/em> reduce the flour by about 40-60 grams.<\/strong> Note that you\u2019ll need to oil your hands to roll the wetter dough and the dough has to be cold or it will be unmanageably sticky. You can see how this flour reduction works in our Whole Grain Ginger Snaps recipe<\/a> where we offer thick and thin cookie options.<\/p>\n Check out the Photo Gallery<\/strong> after the recipe for step-by-step process pics.<\/p>\n![\"snickerdoodle](\"https:\/\/breadtopia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260816_161815-Copy.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Snickerdoodles](\"https:\/\/breadtopia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/snickerdoodles-cooling-rack-Copy.jpg\")
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