I made Gingersnap Cookies during the weekend and they came out REALLY GOOD – crispy on the outside and chewy inside.  Last weekend, I made some gingersnaps too but used a different recipe which I was not completely satisfied with. This one uses powdered ginger, fresh ginger and crystallized ginger which gave it  the “punch” of ginger flavor that I am looking for. I found this recipe from Baking Obsessions, a nice-looking blog.

Normally, I’m not a fan of Gingersnap cookies. But last Christmas, when I failed to bake delicious Gingersnap cookies at a friend’s requests, I was challenged.  The ones I made around Christmas lacked the “umph!” taste of ginger and they turned out too soft.  The following week I went to do more online research. I also asked a Baker (She’s of German-Swiss decent) at Sur La Table why my Gingersnaps were soft. She said I probably didn’t roll it thin enough and advised me get good quality cookie sheet pans.    Later, I saw followed a recipe written at the back of a sugar syrup I got from Ikea’s food mart.  Despite adding triple the suggested amount of ginger powder and cloves, it still lacked the powerful ginger taste that I’m looking for.

This morning,  I googled “Gingersnaps fresh ginger” and found this recipe from Baking Obsession’s blog. It is my first time ever using or tasting crystallized ginger.  The texture and aroma of crystallized ginger after pulsing in a food processor is quite nice, It was VERY YUMMY! I added ground cloves to the recipe to make it even tastier.

Ingredients:

2 cups (9 oz) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick; ¼-lb) unsalted butter, melted and just warm
¼ cup unsulfured mild or full-flavored molasses (I used organic blackstrap)
½ cup sugar
1/3 cup (2.3 oz) firmly packed brown sugar or light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp finely minced or grated fresh ginger root
1 large egg
¾ cup (4 oz) finely chopped crystallized ginger (1/4-inch dice)
1/2 tsp ground cloves

Preparation:

Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, and salt and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Combine the warm butter, molasses, both sugars, fresh ginger, and the egg in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and chopped candied ginger and stir until incorporated. The dough will be soft.

Form the dough into 1-inch balls (1/2 oz of dough for each). Roll the balls in the Demerara sugar and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake, in batches (form the rest of the balls while the first batch is baking ), for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they puff up and crack on the surface and then begin to deflate in the oven. For chewier cookies, remove them from the oven when at least half or more of the cookies have begun to deflate; for crunchier edges with chewy centers, bake a minute or so longer.

Slide the parchment sheets of cookies onto cooling racks or use an offset spatula to transfer the cookies, and cool completely. Stored in an airtight container, gingersnaps keep for several days.