Gingerbread Cookies

My name is Sara and I have a cookie problem.  There, I admit it.  I swear I make other things, but cookies are just so pretty!  Stop judging me. >.<

Pretty classy, eh?

A friend visiting from Italy requested that I remake a gingerbread man I had made last Christmas.   I got to decorate it with her awesome son, which resulted in a ton of fond memories and food comas.

He may look healthy, but he quickly became paraplegic after this photo.

But instead, I decided to go with the fleur de lis pattern above to make my life simpler and try something new!  I couldn't find the recipe I originally used for the gingerbread man, so I settled on one that sounded reasonable online.  One key difference was that it asked me to let the dough sit for 2 hours.  Why?!  I have things to do!  I can't be all waiting and stuff!  So I decided to investigate to see if it was a truly necessary step or could be creatively skipped...

The idea behind resting the dough is so that it is easier to roll out later.  This is something I didn't have to do with the gingerbread man, since I just packed him into the mold.  Gluten strands form when you work dough, so letting it rest will make the dough a bit softer for the rolling pin.  It will also make your cookies less tough too.  Additionally, I saw many suggestions to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before rolling and cutting.  The idea here is to firm up the butter to make the dough less mushy.  It will also reduce how much the cookies will expand in the oven, giving you cleaner, prettier shapes!  Fascinating!

The cookies turned out very soft and almost like a dense cake.  They were packed with ginger spicey goodness and went wonderfully with some hot tea or cold milk.  I would almost prefer more of a snap, but I think that means I have a preference for ginger snaps over gingerbread cookies, and the two are quite different in texture.

Adjustments

Nothing this time around.  I was a good girl and did as I was told!

Next Time

I would definitely decorate them with a bit of frosting next time.  Without tea, they can be a bit plain, and I am a wimp when it comes to spicy things.  A little sugar would go a long way for me.  (Yes, I did just complain that gingerbread cookies are too spicy.  ...I'm not pathetic, I'm just a super taster!)

I would also be interested to try the big gingerbread man again.  That dough was warm and mushy when I packed it into the pan, and the flavor was very different.  I've got to find that recipe!  It's also just really fun to dismember something as you eat it.

Source: http://www.food.com/recipe/the-most-wonderful-gingerbread-cookies-80156

Molasses Ginger Snap Cookies

I thought molasses was gross for a long time.  The only thing I knew about it was that it moved really slowly during January and smelled nasty.  Then when looking for a ginger snap recipe, I found to my surprise that the recipe contained this dark brown viscous goo.  It was time to broaden my horizons!

This ginger snap cookie recipe was easy enough, but there is a lot of sifting going on.  It calls for 2 sifted cups of flour, then asks you to sift the dry ingredients together, and then sift them again into a different bowl.  So why sift so much?

Sifting can accomplish a couple things.  First, it can fluff up an ingredient you are using by breaking up all the clumps.  If a recipe calls for "sifted flour", like this one does, you want to sift before you measure your flour, because it will change the amount.  Personally, I've really taken to baking by weight lately, and a cup of sifted flour weighs 1/4 ounce less than unsifted flour.  So it really can make a difference in how tough your baked good comes out.

According to an answer on StackExchange, another reason to sift is to eliminate unwanted stuff, like chunks of bran in flour or bugs (ewww!)  This has never been an issue for me, so I don't see it as an all inspiring reason to sift.  In fact, if any of the sifting occurs after measuring, I just go to town with a whisk and my life is super easy.

Anyway, back to the cookies!!  These "ginger snaps" are not at all what I would expect compared to what is sold in grocery stores.  They are bigger, softer, and have pretty looking cracks all over the top.  (Oooo!!)  Molasses is delicious and awesome.  It's sweet, but more like a rich, soulful kind of sweet.  I don't get all sugared out eating 2 cookies.  Or 5.  Or 10.  (Stop judging me.)  The cinnamon and ginger flavors are awesome with a warm cup of tea on a crisp autumn night.  So grab your whisk and some sweatpants and get ready for a comfy night!

Adjustments / Substitutions

Nothing really.  I used a stand mixer instead of doing it by hand, but that's the only real deviation.

Next Time

Whenever a recipe says it makes 5 dozen cookies, that tends to translate to 2 dozen cookies in Sara World.  I made these cookies a bit bigger than the recipe called for, which meant that I had to play with the baking time a little bit.  I think I let the first batch go slightly too long, but they still tasted great.  In the future, I would either make the cookies smaller, or get a little bit more greedy with when I take them out of the oven.

Source: Grandma's Gingersnap Cookies