Gingersnaps

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I have never been a big fan of ginger snaps. Generally, I find them too hard and crunchy, a texture I don’t necessarily enjoy in cookies. That changed this year when our pastry chef at work made some as part of a dessert special. The delicious cookies had a lovely, soft texture and a fantastic buttery flavor. Leslie was kind enough to share her recipe with me.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon ginger

6 ounces butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

Coarse sugar

Before I started anything, I allowed the butter and egg to come to room temperature (unless the recipe calls for otherwise, you should always use room temperature ingredients when baking).

First I mixed the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and ginger together in a small bowl and set it aside.

Using the stand mixer I creamed the butter and sugar. Creaming simply means to combine the butter and sugar until they are fluffy. I then added the egg and molasses to the creamed butter and sugar and mixed them until they were well combined.

I gradually added the dry ingredients to my mixture and continued to mix.

Attempting to make gingerbread men, I chilled the dough overnight so I would be able to roll it out easily. The dough was tougher to roll out than my normal sugar cookie dough, but I managed to cut a tray of gingerbread men. Unfortunately, they spread out too much when I baked them, so I just made round cookies with the rest of the dough. I used a small ice cream scoop to measure the cookies consistently. Using my hands, I rolled the cookies into balls and then smashed them down. I baked them at 350 degrees for seven minutes.

As soon as I pulled the cookies out of the oven, I sprinkled them with the coarse sugar. After a few minutes, I moved the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.