Cookie Thursday: Ginger Snaps (recipe)

Oh so snappy, these ginger snaps. The recipe is from Alice Medrich’s Cookies and Brownies. Alice is one of my favorite cookbook authors – her voice is so apparent in all her recipes. She is firm, yet helpful, and wants everyone to create masterpieces with or without chocolate. I have had much fun with this cookbook, her brownies are out of this world. Today I decided that Ginger Snaps were in order, and the recipe was simple enough for my 4 helpers to participate (2 kids plus 2 extras).

Ginger Snaps
From Cookies and Brownies, by Alice Medrich

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons), melted and cooled
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
• Turbinado or raw sugar, to roll the cookies

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and salt in a bowl; mix thoroughly. Set aside.

Combine butter, molasses, sugars and egg in mixer. Mix well. Add in flour mixture and crystallized ginger. Mix well.

Using a 1 1/2″ cookie dough scoop, form the dough into balls, then roll balls in sugar and place on cookie sheets. Bake 10 – 12 minutes, until cookies puff up, crack on the surface and then deflate in the oven. For chewier cookies, remove them from the oven when only half the cookies have begun to deflate; for crunchier cookies, bake a little longer (or, come to my house, where my psycho oven can achieve all these different textures at one time!)

Cool completely before storing. Makes about 4 dozen.