English Gingersnaps

I thought I was all done making cookies for awhile.

I really did.

I made quite a few for Christmas.

I was finished I tell ya.

Then I saw a recipe for English Gingersnaps on Caviar and Codfish and it was back to the kitchen with my bad self.

I am so drawn to all the winter spices. Cloves, cinnamon, allspice, molasses, and ginger. Oh ginger might be my all time favorite. Just the word alone conjures up happy thoughts for me.

My friend Eva had an Australian Shepherd named Ginger. She was the sweetest pup you ever met. There was a hamster in my 3rd grade classroom that Sister Marie named Ginger. I love that the Brits call people with red hair "gingers". They could call them redhead like we do, but I think ginger sounds so much better.

Oh and I almost forgot, ginger ale is my favorite drink. Honest. It's a happy word to me, and a tasty word too. Fresh ginger, crystallized ginger, pickled ginger, it's all good and it's all extra good when the ginger is in a ginger snap cookie.



This is a classic recipe for large, dark, semi soft gingersnaps from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies.

English Gingersnaps
recipe from Caviar and Codfish
Printable recipe
2 ¼ cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter
1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
Granulated sugar (to roll the cookies in)

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice and black pepper and set aside. In the large bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter. Add the brown sugar and beat well. Add the egg and the molasses and beat for a few minutes until the mixture is light in color. On low speed gradually add the sifted dry ingredients, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula and beating only until incorporated.

Refrigerate the dough briefly (in the mixing bowl if you wish) until it can be handled; 10 to 15 minutes might be enough.

Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 375 degrees F.

Spread some granulated sugar on a large piece of wax paper. Use a rounded tablespoonful of dough for each cookie. Roll it into a ball between your hands (rubbing your hands with a bit of canola oil helps keep the cookies from sticking ), then roll it around in the granulated sugar, and place the balls 2½ to 3 inches apart on cookie sheets.



Bake the cookies for about 13 minutes, reversing the cookie sheets top to bottom and front to back once during the baking to insure even browning. The cookies are done when they feel semi firm to the touch.

With a wide metal spatula transfer the cookies to racks to cool.