Ginger Snaps

Scandinavians love their spiced sweets in a variety of forms.  Gram's recipe box has cards for three different types of ginger cookies along with a number of spiced breads and cakes.  Thankfully these are flavors I love, so I'm looking forward to trying them all!  First up is the classic Ginger Snap Cookie.   I would have a really hard time picking a favorite cookie from when I was a kid but these Ginger Snaps would definitely be in contention.   I think they were my Gram's favorite too, but she would have never made such an admission.

These are crispy snaps not soft chewy ones (I do have a recipe for those that will be posted at a later time) and are the quintessential dunking cookie.  I didn't develop a taste for coffee until college, but Gram used to pour just a tiny bit for me to dunk these in.  I would submerge them for just the right amount of time to be sure that the cookie didn't get so saturated that it broke off and fell of into my cup, then I would suck out the ginger sweetened coffee before biting into the coffee soaked cookie.  Mmm, delicious!

I experimented a bit with the rolling sugars - I rolled half in regular granulated sugar, and the other half in courser demerara sugar.  In a very unscientific poll the verdict was split.  I preferred the delicacy of the regular sugar probably due to my taste memories of these cookies, but my husband and a few friends liked the texture the demerara sugar added to the cookie.  You can't miss either way!  Next time I make these I may further experiment using flavored sugar, perhaps orange, cinnamon, or ginger.   I made these prior to deciding to do the blog, so sorry, no pics for this one.

CRISPY GINGER SNAPS

4 C flour

2 T ginger

4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 C shortening (see notes below)

2 C sugar

2 eggs

1/2 C molasses

Sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Whisk dry ingredients in large bowl and set aside.  Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy with hand or stand mixer.  Add eggs one at a time to shortening mixture until combined, then add molasses.  Slowly incorporate dry ingredients until just combined.  Separate dough into 2 - 3 equal parts and wrap in plastic.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  

Working with refrigerated dough one portion at a time (leave remaining parts in fridge until ready to use), use 1" scoop to form cookie, then shape with hands, and roll in sugar. Bake 14 - 16 minutes, transfer to wire rack to cool.  Makes about 8 1/2 dozen cookies.

THE SHORT STORY ON FATS

Many of Gram's recipes call for shortening, which strictly speaking is vegetable shortening, brand-named CRISCO.  I don't remember Gram using Crisco for baking, however I'm sure she must have at times.  Typically, I believe she substituted margarine for shortening.  I did a bit of research on this - if interested Google "substitutions for shortening in recipes" and you'll get a dearth of information - and learned that when substituting margarine or butter for shortening you should add 1 tablespoon per cup to accommodate for the water content in margarine and butter.   So in this recipe, use 1 1/2 C + 1 1/2 Tablespoons (4 1/2 tsp) butter or margarine.

I used margarine in keeping with my recollections of what Gram did, but when I have the time, I plan to make batches with each shortening, margarine, and butter and do a bit of a side by side taste test.  I will post my findings.