Chewy Ginger Snaps

I have been making these Chewy Ginger Snaps for years and they usually disappear very quickly! I adapted the recipe from Soft and Chewy Ginger Snaps from Persnickety Plates. I didn’t change much other than reducing the sugar and salt. I also find that you don’t HAVE to chill the batter if you absolutely can’t wait. They don’t get as much of that classic wrinkly appearance, but they still taste delicious! I have also used shortening for these successfully, and if you like, you can use 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar instead of 3/4 cup white sugar. Feel free to adjust the spices, too! If you can’t stand cloves – leave them out! Nutmeg can also be optional. The ginger and cinnamon are the two key spices for these in my opinion, so have fun and experiment a bit.

Here is what you need to make these cookies. You want to make sure that the butter is soft and your egg is at room temperature. The Demerara sugar is optional. You can use regular white sugar if that is all you have. (My husband actually prefers them that way because they are less “crunchy”. 😉)

With a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream together the 3/4 cup white sugar and 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter. Add in the molasses and egg and beat until very light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. (I find that whisking eliminates the need to sift the ingredients, which many recipes call for.)

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the dough, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (I often make the dough the day before I am going to bake the cookies, and as I mentioned earlier, sometimes I’m in a hurry and don’t chill the dough at all.)

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C) and line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. (I like to let it sit for about 10 minutes so it softens up a bit.) Using a small cookie scoop or two teaspoons, divide dough into balls. You are going to be rolling the dough, and I find that it is faster to do this in steps. First scoop out all the dough blobs, without worrying about spacing them out. Then you can go back and roll them into neater balls, also not worrying about placement.

The last step is to roll the balls in the Demerara or extra granulated sugar. I like to attempt to cover only 3/4 or so of the dough ball in sugar as I find it tends to burn a bit on the bottom so I try to leave that part without sugar. Place the dough balls on the cookie sheets, spacing them two inches apart.

Bake cookies for 8-11 minutes or until they are just set and starting to crack a little bit.

Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 30-40 cookies. (The cookies on the far left were made without chilling the dough first. You can see that they are not quite as wrinkly, but they still tasted good. 😊) These cookies can also be frozen if you want to do some advanced baking in the weeks before the holidays – or you just like to have ginger snaps for a snack at any time of the year!