#10 Brandy Snaps 1949

They don't contain brandy but they do snap. I'd call them Molasses Roll-ups - true to the very dominant flavor and shape, but I didn't write the book. If you like molasses and extra-crisp caramelized sugar, you'll like these cookies.

These start out like no other cookie I've made - the butter, molasses and sugar turn to a syrupy mass in a pan on the stovetop. Then, off the burner, a slow addition of flour results in a gradually thickening batter as the mixture cools.

Batter is not always pretty.

Two teaspoons of batter per cookie, these are "drop" cookies, with no refrigeration needed.  They spread out flat, so place them about 3 inches apart. Easy to melt, mix, drop and bake, the easy part ends here.

Cookies crisp up and hold their shape after cooling
around a spoon handle or dowel.

After 12 minutes in a slow (300⁰) oven, they sizzle and spread out with a bubbly texture. They emerge from the oven squishy-hot. Here's where your timing is essential. Between two minutes and four minutes after they are out of the oven (resting on an air-cushioned cookie sheet), a spatula under an edge will lift each cookie without falling apart. Then, they can curl around the handle of a wooden spoon. Before the two-minute mark, the cookie won't hold together as you lift it off the sheet. After the four-minute mark, the edges begin to crisp up and refuse to curl around the spoon handle. Timing is of the essence. (The recipe says to roll them immediately. If you do so, they will squish into a glob, not unlike the original dough, except cooked. Not at all helpful.)

Good thing I own a lot of wooden spoons.

I thought these were going to be fussy cookies - in my first batch, only the edges crisped up, the centers soggy; in the next, the sugar seemed burnt. The only thing to do - I dug out an oven thermometer from a drawer. Once I got the oven to exactly 300 degrees (325⁰ according to my oven!), they cooked perfectly in exactly 12 minutes.

The notes could have helped with warnings about oven temperature. I guess they have only perfectly calibrated ovens at Gourmet Magazine.

TECHNIQUES: It helped that I'd pressed in the dough centers to give them a head start on spreading evenly thin. You can reheat them a short time to soften them if they crisp up too fast. You can decide whether to roll them with the smooth cookie bottoms on the outside, or the rougher top sides out.

Appearance: If you compare my chocolate brown colored cookies with those light tan ones pictured in the book, it is obvious I used a different molasses than they did. Molasses is a byproduct of sugar production. Light molasses results from the first boiling of the syrup byproduct after the beet or cane juice has crystallized. Dark molasses results from the second boiling. The recipe did not specify which one. (For more molasses info, go here.)

The most common molasses on the grocery shelves is the full flavored dark variety - my brand was Brer Rabbit. Although blackstrap molasses (the third boiling) is supposed to have some health benefits, I understand it can be bitter and should not be used in cookie recipes calling for molasses. I'm not excited about the layer of butter left on the cookie sheets - and my fingers - when I'm done working with these cookies. Seems such a waste of good fat. Otherwise, they make a pretty addition to a plate of more ordinary shaped cookies. 

A final objection - they are so candy-crisp that when I bite into them, they tend to crumble in my hand and on my lap. How about a filling to hold them together? I'm thinking a cannoli filling - something with mascarpone should do the trick. Hmm, another day.

The recipe is here and here.