Monday, January 26, 2015

BB: Gingersnaps

GingersnapsAh, a selection from the Quick-and-Easy List! After the multi-step panettone, I was ready for this one. If I hadn't gone to the effort of blending light brown sugar and super-fine (caster) sugar to make a substitute for "golden baker's sugar", this would have been really fast. All the dry ingredients including the sugar are mixed in a bowl. The butter, melted with golden syrup, goes in next. Mix that, add an egg and an egg white, and the dough is ready. It gets divided in thirds and chilled a bit, then rolled into 27-gram balls (or go for the 1-1/4" diameter) and baked. The baking sheet gets turned around after 5 minutes for even baking, and at that point the cookies are slightly puffed and smooth, just starting to brown. Five to seven minutes more, and the tops have gone golden brown and cracked. I actually did attempt to use the temperature given to decide when these were done, but trying to put the sensor end of my "instant read" thermometer (it's a fairly slow 7-second version) into a cookie was not successful.

The resulting cookie is nicely gingery, crisp-edged, and chewy in the center. I do tend to like a gingersnap with more bite (my sister-in-law's "Chinese gingersnaps" with lots of grated fresh ginger and white pepper, for example), but this is a very good classic gingersnap.

I took the batch of cookies to a meeting in Denver, transporting them in a ziplock bag. Unfortunately they lost that crisp edge by the time I shared them around on day 3 after baking, and instead of the lovely texture contrast of crisp and chewy, the effect was almost tough--too chewy, if that makes sense. The flavor remained, though, and several folks commented on how well they liked it.
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17 comments:

  1. They looked perfect straight out of the oven! They aren't going to last three days around here so maybe that's the secret or freeze them. Sounds like they turned into great "dunkers"!

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  2. They look great! Will be sure to consume ours within three days.

    Fresh ginger and white pepper? You have to post that recipe!!!

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    1. It's from a cookbook called Pacific Flavors by Hugh Carpenter--we got it from a newspaper article probably during a book tour. This is it, from a different paper: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19911120&id=gGhfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=92ENAAAAIBAJ&pg=5594,6635091

      Some notes: if you don't have a microplane grater, get one before trying to produce 5 tablespoons of grated fresh ginger any other way. :) The dough is often hard to handle--the best technique seems to be rolling it between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Lastly, I really like these as tiny cookies, and gave my sister-in-law various cutters about 1" or so long as a suggested size.

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  3. What about the ginger snaps that you were cooking in the blog post? Do you have a link to that recipe?

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    1. It's from The Baking Bible by Beranbaum, and doesn't seem to be one of the recipes they put out for publicity.

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  4. Chinese gingersnaps? That sounds more like my type of cookies..must have had more ginger right?

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    1. 5 tablespoons of fresh. And a tablespoon of white pepper. :)

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  5. I have a confession - I never turn my cookie sheets around during the baking process. Great post - hope you'll stop by to see mine.

    Patricia @ ButterYum
    http://www.butteryum.org/roses-alpha-bakers/2015/1/25/tbb-gingersnaps

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    1. The cookies were baking on sheets just slightly too big for my convection oven,so there's no air circulation between cookie sheet and oven door.
      It seems to matter in my oven for my bread, too--the browning is noticeably uneven. Probably should get the oven calibrated...

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  6. Hi Nancy--great looking cookies! I will be making this again soon. Thanks for the Chinese version--they sound heavenly! I poked a hole in a cookie with my instant reading ThermaPen but it seemed unnecessary. I always appreciate that detail in Rose's recipes, however. Drop by and see me at www.artfuloven.com

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  7. good to know they won't last past three days; i'll make sure my husband and i finish them up right quick :) and those chinese gingersnaps sounds delicious! i'm bookmarking the link, thanks you!

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  8. Mine went soft too but I suppose you could crisp them up again.the Chinese cookies sound like they'd be really hot!

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    1. Although I just noticed it makes 6 dozen so it's spread out heat.

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  9. Nancy.. I'm curious about the Chinese version.. thanks for sharing that recipe. My cookies were gone by day 2, so no loss of crunchy texture. But it would still be fine with me, I like my cookies chewy

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  10. White pepper? That would have given these cookies the extra "pop" they needed instead of more ginger. Great post.

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  11. I've had the same experience with the cookies becoming chewier over time. Love the Chinese version too! Thanks for sharing it.

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  12. As always your posts and photography are awesome! My husband brought home a little piece of ginger so I think I will add a tiny bit to Rose's recipe which I plan to make tomorrow. We love ginger so it should be a nice addition.

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