Recipe: Gingersnap Cookies

the appetizer:

Chanterelle's pastry chef, Kate Zuckerman, has created many exquisite treats in her dessert cookbook, The Sweet Life, including Gingersnap Cookies.

Gingersnap Cookies

9 tablespoons. butter
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground clove
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 cup sugar in the raw

Cream the butter and incorporate the eggs

Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer, beat the butter on a medium speed for one minute. Add the brown sugar, and cream the butter with the sugar until it lightens in color significantly and increases in volume (6-8 minutes). Add the egg and beat it until incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients and molasses

Put all your dry ingredients in a bowl and toss them together with a dry whisk. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients, in one or two turns, into egg-butter mixture. Once the mixture is partially folded together, turn the machine on and mix on a slow speed for one minute until all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Add the molasses and mix on a low speed until the syrup is incorporated. Cover or wrap the dough and refrigerate it.

Bake the cookies

A half hour before baking the cookies, preheat your oven to 350.

Place the raw sugar in a small bowl. Pinch off 1-1/2 inch pieces from the batter, and roll into balls. Drop the balls into the sugar and roll each ball around in the sugar until they are covered in sugar. Place the cookies on the prepared sheet two inches apart and press your thumb in the center of each cookie to flatten them a bit.

Bake these cookies for 20 minutes at 350. The cookies should spread, rise, fall, crack a bit and take on a dark golden brown color. The cookies for this crumb crust should be crisp all the way through. If you are making only one pie crust and you are baking some cookies to eat, bake them for 12-15 minutes, yielding a chewy center and a lighter color.

Buy the Book

from:
The Sweet Life
Desserts from Chanterelle
by Kate Zuckerman
Bulfinch Press
Hardcover; 224 pages; $35.00
ISBN: 0821257447
Recipe reprinted by permission.