There are certain traits that you take for granted you will inherit through the sheer brilliance of DNA; a great golf swing, the ability to whistle, perfect pitch, the simplicity of baking a ginger snap. My mother is not only a great cook but also a fantastic baker. Nobody can top her piecrust. Her mother was a great cook and baker, even making the household bread every week. Now, on the paternal side, my Nana’s culinary contribution was her fish croquets, added annually to the bounty of Christmas Eve dinner. Apparently not a baker, I must get my genes from her.
I don’t know how I got this bee in my bonnet, but for the past few years, I’ve have been trying to break the ginger snap code. Randomly, this question will pop in my head, I could be on the Sepulveda Pass, I could be flying from Newark to LAX, but it will come upon me, what makes a ginger snap snap? And why is this feat so difficult for me to accomplish?
My ginger snaps don’t snap. I follow the recipe, but they come out gingerbready, which, don’t get me wrong, is great, but it’s not a snap. A snap is like a slap on the ass, but in a good way. That thwap sound that you know is going to melt in your mouth. The soccer hottie I’m involved with now (save your questions for the comment section), spent his years following college as a baker in Northampton, Massachusetts. I explained my situation to him over iChat one afternoon while I was blending ingredients for “Cranberry Nut Bread”, another Grandma Sue favorite. He suggested using only yolks, but informed me that his specialty was carrot cake, cheesecake and his ability to knead two loaves of bread at the same time. He wasn’t a cookie man. I consulted the expert. My mother’s suggestion was to lower temperature for longer cooking. This information extrapolated after I begged for her secret. Her reply: “I don’t know, mine have always snapped”. Well, bully for her.
The other evening, I was at Trader Joe’s where I found myself in the check out line debating with the cashier over a canister of ginger snaps or chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Glaring at the ginger snaps, I relinquished the tin to Rafael and decided that this would be the night to tackle the ginger snaps again.
I did not heed the advice of the soccer hottie, but instead decided on a few secrets of mine own, like using one teaspoon of baking soda instead of two, adding double the amount of ginger and substituting King Arthur with gluten free flour. Then I heeded Mom’s advice and lowered the temp from 375 to 350. I waited. The result is what you see here. A glob of ginger goo. Not even that tasty as sometimes goo will be. My experiment ended up in the trash, and I pulled out the never fail good old oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, another one passed down through the family. At least it’s not fish croquettes.
9 comments:
Ok, your soccer hottie sounds dreamy. I love men who bake! Plus, I've eaten your chocolate cake, your chocolate chip cookies and your cranberry nut loaf, all of which were delicious. So your ginger snaps don't snap, it could be worse!
Okay, Kat. My Massachusetts Granny was stuck in the midwest, friendless with three kids. She'd make batch after batch of cookies, pie dough etc. until she got it perfect (OCD? Who knows, it was the '30's). Anyway, since our grandmothers are genetically linked this may work. Are we channeling them right now? Good Lord! The ghost granny blog!
Try this:
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
1/2 pound softened unsalted butter
1 tsp plus a little more baking soda dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
3.5 cups flour
1 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
a few pinches of salt
Cream the butter, sugar and molasses. Mix in the dissolved baking soda/water.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a different bowl, then stir them into the butter mixture. Beat well.
Shape the dough into two logs which you'll wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate. You cn leave them in the fridge for a few hours or until the next morning.
Preheat oven to 350. Slice the cookies very thinly and put them on an UNgreased cookie sheet.
Bake for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they burn easily.
Once baked, remove them from the cookie sheet before they cool, and cool them on a rack.
The end.
Let me know how it goes.
Dear kissing cousin:
Thank you! I can already tell the results will be better than the slop I churned out. I will certainly try this and let you know how it goes!
xo
If you really want to make them snap, just burn 'em.
Too many snappy ginger snaps will turn an otherwise snappy ass slap into an ass with a lot of mass. Who needs em?
Well my friend, I can honestly say that I have never attempted the snap and I am quite a good baker. Maybe next vacation I will tackle it as well and find out the result. Always nice to crack the code of a Granny's recipe (mine Granny's best was Angel Crisps). By the way, Swedish Ginger Snaps, I find, are definitely the best you can buy commercially. See if they have them at Trader Joes.
Hope you are well...miss your face!
My dear Kat,
I have never attempted the ginger snap cookie myself. However, I have tried to tackle, year after year, my german-born grandmother's special butter cookies. My nephew named her "Grandma Cookie" when he was just four years, so it has stuck in our family. A perfect name. Just picture her; a white-haired, fiesty, stubborn woman living in Queen's NY with no teeth to speak of....a rounded body covered in (yes) a blue housedress.
Needless to say, there are no exact amounts to her butter cookie recipe, a dash of this - a speck of that. Together, we have determined the main problems to be - a difference in stoves, the temperature of the butter when mixed, and quite simply - the hands that do the mixing. I have come to the sad conclusion that sometimes, a grandmother's creation cannot be recreated. At 84 years, with hands that have no feelings - Grandma Cookie needs be extra cautious when she cooks. You see, she would not even feel it if she were to burn her hand.
In light of your blog, the ginger snap experience, and my Grandma Cookie's hands, you have inspired me to give the butter cookies one more try!
Love to you Kat...
Just to set the record straight, the Cranberry Nut Bread and the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are my recipes, not my mom's. She was however a wonderful cook and baker, except for pie crusts. I made it my life's ambition to make a tasty pie crust, and I achieved success. But I never was a bread baker, like mom. I tried once, it was a disaster, and I decided I had better things to make! Like my famous Congo Bars, which I learned later, were sold at the schools! My famous CheeseCake is also another hit, given to me by a friend, and altered so that I can now call it mine.
As to the Gingersnap issue. What I have made and called Gingersnaps are really Ginger Crinkles, rolled in balls and then in sugar. What my mother made were the real Fanny Farmer gingersnaps. Her cookbook is the 1930 version, mine is the updated 1965 version. However, other than quantity of ingredients they remain the same: heat to the boiling point 1 cup of molasses. Pour it over 1/2 cup shortening (I use real butter for everything).
Sift together 3 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1 TBSP ginger, 1 1/2 tsp. salt. Mix into molasses mixture. Make two rolls, and wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate. Cut thin slices and bake at 350 degrees, until crisp and dry, approx. 8 - 10 minutes.
Mother's page for this looks like she used the page frequently - you know the kind, drips, grease marks. thumb prints, pencil marks, etc. Much loved and used.
Now to Michael Hawley via Kat's blog. What was your father's name, and what was your grandmother's name? And did your family have "Corn Bread for Breakfast."??????
Love you. Kat
MOM
Maybe you have too much saliva in your mouth and they will never snap? has anyone else tried your cookies to be sure?
Send me a batch to New York, by the time they get here, they will snap."A" for effort.
Keep baking you stuff is so good, I miss it along with a big ice coffee!! -alivaNadine
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