An Old Woman's Cookies

One thing there was never a shortage of around our house when I was growing up was cookbooks.  Stuffed away in the cupboard above the washer and dryer in the kitchen were dozens of cookbooks.  Some of which I am almost positive were never used, save for one recipe.  Others were in 3 or 4 pieces from their repetitive use.  By the time I was ten, I knew exactly which book to get down if we were baking chocolate chip cookies.  The red Betty Crocker had the best recipe.  Snickerdoodles?  That was page 74 of the St. Louis church ladies cook book.  Crinkly Molasses cookies?  Well that was a bit more challenging because it meant we had to dig through the recipe card box for my grandma Dora's handwritten card.  The best part about those hand written recipes?  After the list of ingredients, there was one line of directions:  Bake 12 min at 350 degrees.  Pretty straight forward right?  How many of you would be able to journey through a recipe with only this one instruction and come out with perfect cookies on the other side?  Well my mom could.  And I have a feeling her mom and her mom's mom could as well.

I was craving gingersnaps one day.  It was cold, rainy, foggy, and just plain gray outside.  I wanted to make a good cup of tea and have a crispy spice cookie to go with it.  This is usually how most of my culinary adventures begin - I get a craving, won't be satisfied until I can have what I'm craving, and if I have an hour or two free I usually dive right in.  Well I tugged an old favorite down off the shelf:  The St. Louis women's cookbook.  If there was a recipe for a basic, old fashioned gingersnap cookie that I couldn't mess up, it was bound to be in this cook book.

Ah ha!  Page 288 - "Best Ever Gingersnaps."  There is a fleeting memory as I look at the name on the recipe - Helen Johnson.  Her face is very real to me.  She had a loose but curled bob of white hair, dark set eyes and charmingly feline features.  I can hear her soft, squeaky voice smacking in the back of my mind.  Her brick red hat with the wide brim that she always wore to church on Sunday.  Still walking to and from even in winter.  Her husband Ernest was home bound but he would spend time teaching me how to play Gin-Rummy on the wood table he laid across his lap while in his chair.  He passed away when I was very young, but she lived on for a decade or more after that.  Her basement was an art gallery filled with the dozens of oil paintings she had created while she taught herself the craft.  One Christmas she sat with me while we worked together on a very basic crocheted ornament.  It wasn't much, but she dressed it up with bows of different colored yarn, and hand wrote "Merry Christmas" in her neatest cursive across a piece of cardboard that we tied to it.  I must have been the proudest child that day, showing my mom what I made for the tree.  That ornament is still in a box that gets pulled out every year my mom decorates her tree.

I had never baked anything with Ms. Johnson, but I knew THIS was the recipe to use.

The only question left, was hinging on the first ingredient on the list:  "3/4c lard or shortening"  Hmmm...lard or shortening?  What to do?  After a phone call to my mother and a short discussion about cause and effect of using lard over shortening, I decided to go with the shortening.  Here's the list of directions under the recipe:  "Mix together all ingredients.  Form into balls, flatten with the palm of your hand.  Bake on cookie sheets at 400 degrees until brown."

Yep, that's it!  Simple as that.  Because who wouldn't know how to properly mix cookie ingredients together right?  Thankfully I had a basic upbringing in the subject and was able to survive.  In the end, it took two attempts to get the desired SNAP from this recipe.  Which I believe is a considerable success.

It's not everyday you page through a recipe book and can associate a memory from your childhood to each one.  But it sure does make choosing the recipe to use a lot easier.  Here's to Ms. Johnson - for teaching me how to crochet, and how to make the "Best Ever Gingersnap" cookies!

(See below for full recipe)

3/4 c shortening (or lard softened)
2 eggs
1.5 c white sugar
1/2c molasses
2 T ginger (don't skimp if you want the real deal)
1 tsp allspice*
4c flour
2tsp soda
2 T white vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp grated orange zest*

*optional ingredients that I added on the 2nd try and was very pleased with the results!

1) Cream shortening, eggs, sugar and vinegar in mixing bowl
2) Stir in molasses, ginger, allspice, and orange zest until well mixed
3) Whisk or sift together 3c flour, soda, and salt in separate bowl
4) Add dry ingredients to batter a cup at a time until dough come together and stiffens.  Add final 1c of flour.  May need more flour if batter is still too soft.
5) Refrigerate dough for an hour.  (This step can be skipped and you can begin rolling balls right away, the cold dough was just easier to handle.  If you use the dough right away, make sure you dust your hand with a little flour in between rolling each ball to keep from sticking.)
6) Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
7) Take 3/4 T of dough at a time and roll into a ball.  Place on a greased cookie sheet - I fit 8 on my sheets at a time.  You can make bigger balls but I found this led to a chewy cookie rather than a crispy cookie.
8) Using heel of your hand, press dough balls out to flatten.  The flatter they are, the faster they cook so try to keep them all the same size.
9) Oven racks should be middle lower and middle upper - cookies will literally only take about 5-7 mins per pan.  I did mine one sheet at a time.  If you do two at a time, make sure to rotate pans top to bottom halfway through.
10) Cookies need to be dark brown but not smell burnt when you take them out.  1-2 mins too long and the bottoms go from brown to black - I recommend not leaving the kitchen for these cookies :)

Hope you enjoy!!!