Oh Snap! Gingersnaps!

Crinkly, cracked, sugary perfection.

All wrapped up in a pretty brown bursting-with-fall-flavor package.

This is the recipe for Gingersnaps that i've been using for years, and it's my most requested cookie during Fall.

Every year, friends and family know that Fall is here when I start doling out the Gingersnaps. I bring them to family functions, holidays, parties, you name it; they're always devoured.

What makes these little flavor-packed cookies so scrumptious? Some say the smell or the amount of flavor packed into each little cookie. Others say it's the soft and chewy inside with a crispy, sugar-coated outside. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

Another wonderful thing about these little treats are that they leave your whole kitchen smelling fantastic. Also, these are super kid-friendly! My daughter loves to help me in the kitchen and she loves making these cookies because she gets to roll them and shape them to her heart's content.

Personally, I think that what makes these cookies is that you completely coat them in sugar and then bake them. My daughter likes to flatten them on the baking sheet, but I leave them completely rounded and let them flatten naturally as they bake.




Not to mention, I'm probably the worst blogger ever. Seriously? It's been almost two months since I've last posted something?
It's not that I don't cook. I do. All the time.
But, I find it so hard to edit photos and then post the recipes and stuff while chasing an (almost) two-year-old.

Forgive me, world.

Gingersnap Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of shortening
• 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• sugar

Directions:

Mix thoroughly your shortening, brown sugar, egg, and molasses until creamy. Blend in the remaining ingredients, except for the sugar. Cover and chill for up to 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Shape dough by rounded teaspoonfuls into balls. Roll dough in a bowl of sugar until completely coated (I've also done the plastic bag method, where you fill a plastic baggy with sugar and shake the dough around until it's coated. This works too, but you'll have to reshape your dough after you're done).

Place balls of dough onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, up to 3 inches apart. Bake for about 10-12 minutes depending on how crispy you like them.

Remove immediately from baking sheet onto a cooling rake.*

*With these cookies that they may feel like they're undercooked when you take them out of the oven, but they will firm up as they sit. I bake mine for 10 minutes. If I leave them in for the additional 2 minutes, I find that they become more crispy on the inside and I'm not a fan of crispy cookies.

Photos taken with iPhone4 and edited with iPhoto.