Hot Cookie - the Archive

My friend Gitte brought along a batch of Chocolate Ginger Shortbread. These refrigerator cookies needed several hours of chilling, so she made them up the night before. It is a handy thing to do when you know you are expecting company and want to have some fresh cookies to serve. They roll into a tube shape and you can cut as many as you need from the roll, saving the rest for another time. Gitte's Chocolate Ginger Shortbread Never mind the cookies. Gitte gave me the best kitchen tip of the day. She reuses butter wrappers whenever she can. When the piece of parchment I cut did not cover the entire baking sheet, she reached for the butter wrappers to fill in the empty spaces. Why didn't I think of that? She was reluctant to have me spill this tip in my blog. "Maybe you'll find it's toxic or something!" It turns out that lots of people keep their butter wrappers and reuse them to butter a pan. And for many other purposes. See the comment...

I keep seasonings on two lazy Susans next to the measuring cups. Among them are all the spices in these cookies--cinnamon, ginger and cloves. The label "Fall Spices" graces that particular shelf. Sparkling sugar topping on left, granulated on right. I usually think about this type of cookie later in the year when I'm breaking out the wool sweaters and the leaves start to fall. When I made these--just a couple of weeks ago--summer hadn't started. These cookies were welcome. Everyone has a favorite ginger cookie and these are some of the best of their type. I love everything in them. Beyond the spices, the other flavors blend without overpowering each other. Who can go wrong with a little brown sugar and molasses? The instructions say to bake them for 7-8 minutes, a little less for a chewy cookie, my personal favorite. If you want a crisp cookie, add 2 minutes to the cooking time. Easy. The recipe calls for dipping the tops in sugar just before baking. I wo...

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 esse...

Light, airy, with deep spice on the back of the tongue, these are the first cookies from the book to which I could become addicted. Molasses is the star flavor.  But add cinnamon, a rich brown color, and the bear shapes, and nearly everyone asks if they are "gingerbread" cookies. No ginger in them. Use a spatula to transfer cookie to cookie sheet. They are crisper and lighter, thinner (gotta love thinner) than gingerbread you'd use to make houses. In 1944, Gourmet Magazine suggested sending these to soldiers abroad. I could see how they'd hold up to travel, so I sent some to my daughter, at school in Evanston, Illinois. I also shared with my teammates at the Granite Curling Club (where I've been a member for 25+ years), and at a meeting with my research colleagues. They were a hit. Do you detect a strategy to avoid eating them all myself? Brush cookie tops with water and sprinkle on sparkling sugar. My rolling pin got another workout, but this dough, ...