High Altitude Snickerdoodle Blondies

These easy to make, high altitude snickerdoodle blondies are dense, thick, soft and chewy, with a classic snickerdoodle cookie flavor and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. If you love snickerdoodles, but don’t want to fuss with scooping balls of dough for individual cookies, you’ll love how quickly these snickerdoodle cookie bars come together. And since today’s recipe uses melted butter in the cookie dough, you don’t even need a mixer to make them.

You might also love snickerdoodle cheesecake bars, snickerdoodle cake, and cinnamon ice cream.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easier than Cookies. I love to eat snickerdoodle cookies, but I don’t always want to make a bunch of individual cookies, which is what I love about cookie bars. With these snickerdoodle blondies, you simply mix up the dough with a bowl and spoon, spread the dough into a pan, and bake them into deliciously soft and chewy bars.

Full of Snickerdoodle Flavor. These blondies are based my high altitude snickerdoodle cookie recipe, with a few tweaks to turn them into perfect cookie bars. The cream of tartar gives them that classic “tangy” snickerdoodle flavor, and the shower of cinnamon sugar on top is the perfect finish.

Moist and Soft for Days. You’ll love how soft these blondies are, keeping perfectly for days at room temperature, or frozen for even longer.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Blondies

• Unsalted Butter. The butter adds fat, flavor and richness, as well as keeps the blondies moist.
• Granulated Sugar + Brown Sugar. Adds sweetness and moisture, with a hint of caramel notes from just a bit of brown sugar.
• Eggs. Add structure, stability and moisture to the cookie bars, as well as make them chewy.
• Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
• All-Purpose Flour + Corn Starch. The flour provides structure to the cookies, and a little corn starch makes them extra tender and soft.
• Cream of Tartar. Cream of tartar adds the classic tangy flavor that snickerdoodles are known for, as well as leavens the dough to help them rise just a little.
• Coarse Kosher Salt. Balances the sweetness.
• Cinnamon. Ground cinnamon added to the cookie dough gives these blondies even more cinnamon flavor, in addition to what’s sprinkled on top.

Cinnamon Sugar

• Sugar + Cinnamon. Snickerdoodle cookie dough is always coated in cinnamon and sugar before baking, giving the cookies a delicious sweet and spicy crust with the soft and chewy cookie inside. So it’s only natural that these blondies should have a cinnamon sugar crust right on top.

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper, to make it easier to lift out and cut the cooled blondies.
• Place the butter in a saucepan, and melt the butter over medium heat on the stove. Remove from the heat.
• In a large bowl, use a wooden spoon to stir together the hot melted butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar. Stir in the eggs and vanilla until well combined.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, salt and cinnamon, until everything is evenly distributed. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, and stir just until the flour is incorporated and you have a soft dough.
• Spread the dough into the prepared pan, and sprinkle the dough with 1 tablespoon of sugar.

• Bake for exactly 25 minutes, until the bars have risen slightly, and the top crust on the blondies is set.
• Set the pan on a cooling rack. Combine the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the baked blondies. Cool completely, at least 4-6 hours, before cutting.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you use melted butter instead of softened butter?

When making snickerdoodle cookies, you’ll usually start with softened butter, which is whipped with the sugar for several minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients. This step incorporates air for a fluffy texture, as well as makes a thicker cookie dough, so it won’t have to chill as long before baking the cookies. With cookie bars or blondies, though, you don’t want to beat in a lot of air. Too much volume can cause the blondies to puff up dramatically, but then settle down again as they cool. Usually the edges stay puffed, since they set and bake more quickly than the middle, so you’ll end up with edges that are about twice as tall as the center. This annoys me to no end in a cookie bar recipe.

So by using melted butter, there’s no need to use a mixer, since you can easily mix all the ingredients together with a bowl and spoon. The dough will be softer and more spreadable since the butter is warm, and bakes into perfect blondies with an even thickness all the way across.

Are these blondies supposed to rise very high?

No, they’re not meant to rise super high as they bake, but they do puff and rise a little from the cream of tartar, giving you a nice thick cookie bar. If you want a bit more lift, add 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to the dry ingredients before making the cookie dough. Adding baking soda may also result in the taller edges, as mentioned above.

Why don’t you sprinkle all the cinnamon sugar over the blondies before baking them?

During my first recipe test, I combined the sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkled all the cinnamon sugar over the dough before baking my blondies. What happened is that the cinnamon darkened in the oven, giving the top of the blondies a patchy appearance, almost as though they were burned, even though they certainly were not. So purely for aesthetic reasons, I don’t add the cinnamon sugar before baking. Instead, sprinkle just some of the sugar over the dough and bake the blondies. Then combine the rest of the sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle it on top of the baked blondies to finish decorating them before cutting.

So why not just sprinkle all the cinnamon sugar on the blondies after they bake, instead of dividing the sugar? Because if you baked the blondies without the sugar on top, they would form a smooth golden brown crust. Then any cinnamon sugar you sprinkle on them wouldn’t stick to the surface, and would just fall right off. So by sprinkling some of the sugar on before baking, it gives the rest of the cinnamon sugar something to stick to after baking.

How long do snickerdoodle blondies stay soft?

Store leftover blondies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, and they will stay very moist and soft.  You can also wrap the blondies in several layers of plastic wrap, and freeze for up to 3-6 months.

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