Gingersnaps

Nothing says “home” like a cookie jar. A cookie jar was a staple of the home kitchen from the 1930’s straight through to the 1970’s. It was situated within reach – though not too easy of a reach, for usually the jars were breakable – of little hands grasping for an after school snack or bigger ones sneaking a treat.

Like many utilitarian objects that lived on the kitchen counter, the cookie jar became a design element. In early kitchens, biscuits and crackers were stored in a metal box in a cupboard. The cookie jar appeared as a clear glass jar printed with a simple theme – say cherries, lemons or autumn leaves – and topped with a metal screw lid.  Manufacturers of home pottery usually offered a cookie jar as part of the hostess line, where it served alongside other such from the coffee pot to the gravy boat in coordinating the table, the counter and the breakfront. Homekeepers sought the jars as premiums from wherever they obtained their dishes – anywhere from a downtown mercantile to mail order, from the county fair to the green stamp store.

As design elements from popular culture infiltrated the home, the cookie jar became a marketing surface for every business concern from mass bakeries like Nabisco to movie studios like Walt Disney. Cookies were equated with childhood, so often these jars – which were now frequently figural-- were equated with children’s properties. Such was the case with my grandmother’s cookie jar, which struck a discordant chord in her mint green and white kitchen, as it was cobalt blue and printed with the dimpled smile of Shirley Temple. Not just my grandmother but everyone from Andy Warhol to contemporary collectors appreciated mid-century cookie jars for the charm with which they transmit the aesthetics of eras gone by.

When I started housekeeping, we decorated our home with matinee cowboys. As a habitué at the time of the great 26^th Street Flea Market, I collected both a figural cactus cookie jar and – score! – a Roy Rogers chuck wagon. These cycle in and out of display in our New York City living room, where they always draw an exclamation of appreciation from visitors. I’ve long since quit filling them with cookies, but as everyone from curious neighbors lured by the fragrance of butter and spice to the tailor who has to keep letting out my pants will attest, I haven’t yet quit baking cookies.

Like the jars they live in during their brief, sweet lives,cookies are an old-fashioned treat. There is certainly nothing wrong with plated dessert, but I have observed that most people smile their truest smile when they bite into a cookie. Perhaps that’s because a cookie doesn’t demand appreciation the way a showy dessert does. A cookie just wants to please. It does so with its simplicity, with the sweetness not just of its flavor but of its disposition.

So far at Urban Home, we have filled our cookie jar with light lemon meltaways and lunch box ready peanut butter cookies. We’ve baked a pan of brownies (just for ourselves, if we want). We’ve made sensual apricot bars and decadent toffee bars. We’ve rolled and cut happy holiday fruitcake biscotti and labored over elegant winter weather maple creams. And this month, in honor of the cookie jars I obtained so long ago and the first cookies I filled them with at John’s request, here is my original recipe for gingersnaps. These chewy cookies don’t “snap,” but like my grandmother’s birthday cake, they are definitely spicy. These gingersnaps will be at home in your cookie jar, though they won't live there long!

 

Gingersnaps

In these cookies, butter replaces the bacon fat with which gingersnaps were historically made; along with the molasses, that is why these are chewy, rather than crunchy, cookies.  Look for unsulfured molasses in the baking section of the grocery store. All of the spices should be available in the grocery store as well. 

¾ cup unsalted butter, plus extra for the cookie sheets

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

2-1/4 cups flour

¼ cup unsulfured molasses

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

5 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Salt

1. Position two racks in center of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Unwrap the butter and place the butter in a large mixing bowl to soften.
3. Place a layer of paper towels on a table or countertop and set up a baking rack over the paper towels.
4. Butter two cookie sheets and place them within reach of the working surface.
5. Measure the sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg into a bowl. Use a wire whisk to thoroughly combine the sugar and the spices.
6. Measure ½ cup of the sugar/spice mixture into a bowl and set the bowl aside.
7. Measure the flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl; stir to combine.
8. Measure 1/4 cup molasses into a measuring cup with a spout. Crack the egg into the molasses. Use the whisk or a fork to break the egg into the molasses.
9. Add the 1 cup spiced sugar to the bowl containing the softened butter. Use a hand mixer set to medium to combine the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and creamy.
10. Add the egg-molasses mixture to the butter-sugar mixture.  Use a silicon spatula to get all of the molasses mixture from the measuring cup. Use the hand mixer to combine the butter-molasses mixture until the mixture is smooth.
11. Add the flour mixture to the butter-molasses mixture.  Use the hand mixer to combine just until the flour mixture is incorporated into the dough.  Use a silicon spatula to scrape down the side of the mixing bowl as warranted.
12. Use two tablespoons to scoop out a bit of cookie dough and shape it into a ball.  Scrape one spoon against the other to drop the cookie ball into the mixing bowl that contained the spiced sugar mixture.  Sprinkle the cookie with a bit of the spiced sugar mixture that you reserved in the smaller bowl.
13. Continue scraping cookies into the large bowl and sprinkling them with spiced sugar until you have used up all of the cookie dough.
14. Once you have used all of the cookie dough, use the tablespoons or your fingers to place the balls of cookie dough 2 inches apart on the cookie sheets.  You should be able to place eight balls of cookie dough on each sheet.
15. Transfer the cookie sheets to the oven and bake cookies until the tops crack open and the edges start to turn golden, approximately 10 minutes.
16. Once the cookies are baked, use pot holders to remove the cookie sheets from the oven.  Use a flat spatula to gently transfer the warm cookies to the baking rack.
17. Once the cookies are transferred, repeat steps 14 - 16 until you have used all of the dough.
18. Once all of the cookies are baked and have cooled, transfer them to an airproof container, where they will stay fresh up to five days.