Dec 11

Dec 11 Oh Snap! Gingersnaps

The couple weeks that stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a time for preparing. We prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christmas and we prepare our kitchens and tables too. This usually means a lot of time listening to carols and baking cookies. Lots of cookies. Last year I outdid myself in the cookie department. I tried new recipes while still making the must-haves.

This year we started with Gingersnaps, as usual. These cookies are great because they don’t have to look like Christmas, but they certainly can! We tend to go through several batches because Mom has built up a reputation of awesome Gingersnaps. She takes them to work to share—and this year so will I.

The perfect Gingersnap is crisp and crunchy on the edges but soft and chewy in the middle.

For these cookies you start off with two bowls (not an unusual thing for cookies).

In your wet ingredient bowl you’ll put:

· 1 cup sugar

· 1 ½ sticks butter (I put this in first and beat it a little to soften it up)

· ¼ cup molasses

· 1 large egg

Cream these ingredients together until they’re well combined and fluffy.

In your dry ingredient bowl, whisk together:

· 2 ¼ cups flour

· 2 teaspoons baking soda

· 1 teaspoon cinnamon

· ½ teaspoon salt

· ½ teaspoon ginger

· ½ teaspoon cloves

· ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

You didn’t know a bowl of dry ingredients could smell so good.

Then you combine these two bowls together. This year I ran the hand-mixer while Mom added spoonful after spoonful of the flour mixture. It’s more fun to bake with other people, so I’m glad we were able to do this project together this year.

After you’ve got it all combined, it’s time to let the dough rest and chill in the refrigerator for about an hour. Cover it with cling wrap before you put it in the fridge.

While the dough is resting, be sure to enjoy the dough that you (intentionally) didn’t clean off the beaters very well. This is also a good time to preheat your oven to 350°F.

Once you’ve cleaned up your mess and let the dough rest, it’s time to start making and rolling cookie dough balls in sugar. To get somewhat uniform cookies we use a small ice cream scoop (we only use it for cookies, so maybe it’s a cookie scoop?) to get the dough out of the bowl. Normally you just roll them in plain granulated sugar. We decided to roll the tops of them in decorating sugars so they were Christmassy.

Put your rolled cookie dough balls on an ungreased baking sheet. They do spread out quite a bit; so don’t put them too close together. We try to leave at least two inches between them.

We use stoneware from Pampered Chef and the cookies bake in about 9 minutes. When you pull them out of the oven they tops will look cracked and you’ll see little air bubble holes. If you bake them too long they’ll be all snap. Some people like them like that, so it’s up to you. We like soft middles.