COOKIE #17: BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES

“Mm, I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly.” ~ Ron Burgundy

I was super disappointed to learn that there has never been any actual scotch in butterscotch.  Ever. Butterscotch has been around since the 1800’s and the “scotch” portion of its name comes from either “scorch” (because its cooked at high temperatures) or “scotch” (which also means to cut). It does not come from the delicious Scottish whiskey.  And if the idea of a butterscotch cookie didn’t intrigue me so much, I might be too sad and have to skip this one. So why does this butterscotch cookie fascinate me so much?  Because there aren’t any butterscotch chips in it! Where am I supposed to get that distinct flavor from?  Guess I don’t really know what butterscotch is…

Cookies!

Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, although other ingredients such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt are part of some recipes.  It typically refers to the yellow-wrapped hard candy we find at doctor’s offices or grandma’s house.  From the candy, you can also make a syrup/sauce.  But when we talk about butterscotch in baked goods or puddings, we are only talking about the flavor profile it lends – the flavor or brown sugar and butter together, even when the actual candy is not involved.

Oh! So this cookie should still taste like butterscotch even though there aren’t any flakes of candy or little baking chips in them. But with only ¼ cup of butter, plus the addition of shortening, I’m a bit skeptical. We shall see… 

Steps 1, 2, 3

The first step tells us to melt the butter and shortening. Back in 1962 when this cookbook was published, they didn’t have microwaves (they weren’t available for home use until 1967), so I’m guessing that meant the homemaker had to melt them on the stove.  What a pain. As for me, I’m thankful for my microwave oven because that means I have one less pot to clean. Then its time to add the sugars.  If butterscotch is known for its butter and brown sugar profile, then why is there white sugar in this recipe? My skepticism rises. And why are there walnuts in this cookie??? Why oh why does this BH&G cookbook love walnuts so darn much?! Wouldn’t the nuttiness take away from the butterscotch-y-ness?  I throw my hands up, finish the cookies, and hope for the best.

At least I have this adorable face to brighten up my kitchen

What I got was the worst. These cookies taste NOTHING like butterscotch. They are a bit buttery, but I don’t get any inkling of that caramel-like richness that normally goes with butterscotch. They taste like overly sweet, bad sugar cookies with a bunch of crummy walnuts in them. They are soft, the texture is good, but these cookies are ill-named. Buttersuck cookies is more like it.

Maybe I’ve just had one too many cookies lately and my palette is a bit temperamental, but I know for sure that these cookies do not deliver on the butterscotch flavor that was promised.  Now if only I had a glass of Macallan to wash them down with, I might grade them a little higher.

waiting for their turn in the oven

Cookie Grade: D- = because they are so soft, they might be good enough to feed to people who’ve survived a terrible fire and now have no taste buds.

What I was jammin’ to: old mix cd from high school – Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Hole (remember when Courtney Love had that one good song: Celebrity Skin?), Rage Against the Machine, Fat Boy Slim, etc.

Meh.

COOKIE #16: PEANUT-BUTTER CRISSCROSSES

Growing up as a kid, I wasn’t a fan of the peanut butter cookie.  Which is a bit odd for a girl who grew up asking for two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in her lunchbox every day. I’ve always loved peanut butter, but I’ve only recently began to enjoy the simple nuances of the peanut butter cookie.  Actually, my love for this cookie started to grow when I realized how absolutely easy these cookies are to make, and that I almost always have the ingredients for them in my pantry. Got a sweet tooth but no sweets in the house? Then this cookie is a fantastic go to.



Got to use a fancy mixer...ooooo!



Interesting Facts about Peanut Butter (because knowledge is power):

·        It’s a law in the United States that any product labeled “peanut butter” must contain at least 90% peanuts.

·        It takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter.

·        There is a name for the fear of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth – arachibutyrophobia!

·        In 1890, a St. Louis doctor developed the idea of packaging peanut paste for people with bad teeth. Peanut paste was sold for six cents per pound. This was the earliest form of peanut butter.

·        If you remember Mr. Ed the talking horse (from TV), they gave the horse peanut butter to make his mouth move as if he was talking.

·        One-half of all edible peanuts produced in the United States are used to make peanut butter and peanut spreads.

·        Unopened peanut butter is good for up to two years.  Opened peanut butter is good for 6 months.  And stays fresher if kept in the refrigerator.

·        Jif operates the world’s largest peanut butter plant, producing 250,000 jars every day!

·        1908: Krema Products Company in Columbus, Ohio, began selling peanut butter and is the oldest peanut butter company still in operation today.

Didn't want to use real
natural peanut butter,
because I figure they didn't
have it back in 1962.

Want more history? Keep reading. Bored already? Skip to the next paragraph. (But then we’ll all know that you hate learning and nobody wants to hate learning, right?) Peanuts have been added to cookies for hundreds of years, so it was only natural that after the invention of peanut butter, it would become a popular add-in as well. But the early peanut butter cookies did not have the famous fork marks. The titled “crisscross” marks were first mentioned in the Schenectady Gazette on July 1, 1932. The Peanut Butter Cookies recipe instructed readers to “Shape (the dough) into balls and after placing them on the cookie sheet, press each one down with a fork, first one way and then the other, so they look like squares on waffles.”  Now that’s a pretty good description.  Everyone knows what a waffle looks like. Then, Pillsbury popularized the use of this fork trick in their 1933 edition of Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes.  From there on, crisscrosses became the peanut butter cookie’s calling card. 

<--- Hit Play to see what Annalie thinks of flour...see her "jiggle jiggle" as my mom calls it.

I’m over at my mom’s house when I decide to bake up these gems. Which is good for two reasons: 1, my mom has an awesome kitchen and mixer. 2, my mom is there to help me wrangle my little cookie monster while I cook. J The recipe has an asterisk stating that “for richer cookies, use 2 cups of flour (vs the called for 3 cups).” Um, yeah. Of course I want richer cookies! That’s like saying, “oh, if you would rather have more awesome cookies, do this instead.” Who would choose NOT to use less flour if the promise was richer cookies? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “nah thanks, I’m rich enough.”

Grandma Walter and Annalie

Baby girl helps me mix my dry ingredients. These cookies are so fast to whip up, I get the first batch in the oven in record time.  While they are baking, I begin to wish that I had also bought some Reeses Pieces to add to the cookies.  The last time I made peanut butter cookies, I was with my bestie Cody B and we did them up right, with Reeses Pieces and M&Ms. Gotta love chocolate and peanut butter! Luckily, my mom has chocolate chips. So I toss those bad boys into the batter and finish up my 5 dozen cookies. The result? Spot on, gorgeously prepared peanut butter cookies (I forgot to take a pic of the finished product!).  They are crispy without being crunchy.  Light and airy, but also rich in peanut buttery goodness. The cookies with the added chocolate chips are as good as any store-bought candy bar. And within a day they are gone!

before they went in the oven

Another good thing about baking up cookies at my mom’s: having plenty of people to send them home with. So thank you to my mom, my sister Beth, and my brother Kyle for taking these off my hands!  Hope you enjoyed them!

Cookie Grade: A = traditional no-fuss peanut butter cookies, yummmm

What I was jammin' to: girl talk with Annalie, my mom, and Grandma Walter. 4 generations!

COOKIE #15: COFFEE CORNUCOPIAS

Looking forward in my 1962 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, I’ve got some tough cookies coming up. I’m particularly concerned about the “filled cookie” section in a couple pages, but today I ease into more of the “drop and shaped cookies.”  These Coffee Cornucopias look like a bit more work than I’m used to and are heavy on the shape.  The cornucopia shape. Thank goodness for the “See picture” remark because I’m a bit befuddled as to how these are supposed to turn out. I turn to page 183 and find the Coffee Cornucopias depicted at the bottom of a tray full of “Dainty cookies for a special party.”  They do look dainty. Pretty darn special.  And not too unlike the Thanksgiving cornucopia I had in mind. 



"Ringed around the roses are Creme-filled Cookies,
so tender and flaky. Next come butter rich Sandies
- they've been dipped in Confectioners'
Icing and rolled in tinted flaked coconut.
Beneath are fragile-crisp Coffee Cornucopias
filled with whipped cream."



The horn of plenty is a symbol of abundance and nourish-ment, hence why we usually see them around Thanksgiving. To give thanks for all of the delicious booty, I mean bounty, which has been bestowed upon us all year long. So why don’t we celebrate this symbol of abundance more often?  Don’t ya think we need more cornucopia-related items out there? Ok, maybe not. But at least incorporating them into cookies seems like a good idea.  

So, I hadn’t heard of these cookies before BH&G. And when I searched the ole internet, I did not pull up a single recipe for them.  I find a Cornucopia Coffee sandwich shop in Indiana.  Cornucopia cookie cutters.  Images of coffee mugs with cornucopias on them. But no actual cookies. If the all-knowing google can’t find these cookies, then they must be a rarity. Or perhaps just bad cookies? I’m on a mission to find out! 

So this is the first cookie I’ve ever made that has coffee in it. I love coffee.  From the pot to the mug black coffee.  This recipe calls for instant coffee, something I don’t normally have, but found it really cheap to buy.  Like $1 kinda cheap. Instant coffee powder is freeze dried coffee. The powder can be immediately rehydrated with any liquid, which means that you can get an instant shot of coffee flavor without adding extra liquid to your ingredients. In cakes and cookies, where ingredient ratios can be sensitive, small amount of coffee can be “activated” by the presence of eggs, butter or anything else that is reasonably wet. Good to know. 

Once all together, the batter is pretty thin and pretty scarce.  I have a hard time believing that I will get 4 dozen cookies out of this tiny bit of batter, but I will say that it smells and tastes divine. Like sweet coffee. I measure out the very precise 2.5 inch diameter to each spread cookie.  I can’t tell if I’m using too much batter, but I’d rather have fatter cookies to work with than paper thin ones that tear.  And I do only 8 at a time as suggested.  They bake up quickly.  The edges become a bit crispy but the rest of the cookie is malleable, easy to manipulate.  I do my best to make little horns, set them up seam side down to set, and get to the next batch. 

In the end, my cornucopias look a bit more like cannoli, but I give them two thumbs up because they held together! And apparently I DID use too much batter because I ended up with only 2 dozen (vs 4 dozen) cookies. I insert a bit of canned whipped cream (I’m sure in the olden days, they made their whipped cream by hand, but not this girl.), and take a taste…HEAVEN!  These cookies are delicate and full of flavor at the same time. And like a good cup o’joe, they are addictive. They are seriously good enough to be served in any fancy schmancy pastry shop.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  I think this one even beats my former fave, the gingersnaps. Now I wonder if I'll get a caffeine jolt?

Modeling her "I'm Pretty like my Aunt" onesie,
courtesy of her Aunt BB...its true!

Cookie Grade: A+ = delicate, yet decadent. Hard to put down. And I'll never misspell cornucopia after writing this blog. lol (I thought it was cornAcopia...silly me)

What I was jammin’ to:  Janis Joplin and friends…I’m a pterodactyl!

COOKIE #14: CHOCOLATE CRINKLES

So by cookie #14, I’ve gone thru a 10lb bag of flour and my first 2lb 10oz tub of shortening.  Knowing that I am going to finish a giant tub of shortening today really got me thinking.  All I can picture is me sitting down with that tub, a spoon, and going at it. Yikes! And God only knows how much sugar I’ve gone thru.  According to my calculations, the 7.5 cups of nuts I’ve used equals roughly 2.1 lbs. Not to mention all the butter, dried fruits, and corn flakes.  If I were eating all these cookies alone, I would have easily gained 10lbs already. So thank you to all my friends, family, and John’s co-workers for sticking your hypothetical spoon into my tub o’ shortening.

These Chocolate Crinkles have me smiling right away.  First off, it has a cute name.  When I hear the word “crinkle” I think of Annalie’s squished up little nose as she makes faces at me. Then, I read online that this cookie is also known as the original black and white cookie. Cool. I pull up another tab online and find Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” on YouTube, and continue my cookie search. Turns out, my BH&G recipe is a bit skimpy on the chocolate. Martha Stewart uses 4oz of chocolate (this recipe uses only 2oz) and less flour. And some recipes even use 8oz (a half a pound!) of chocolate.  Right away I’m tempted to add more chocolate, but decide to stay true to the recipe.

This cookie calls for unsweetened chocolate. I use the classic Baker’s chocolate bar which includes one ingredient and one ingredient only: chocolate. “Unsweetened chocolate” does not contain any sugar or milk products.  It’s bitter, but in a good way, like the black coffee of the chocolate world.  This is the base for all other chocolates. "Bittersweet chocolate" is unsweetened chocolate to which some sugar (less than a third) has been added. "Semisweet chocolate" is chocolate with even more sugar than bittersweet chocolate, with half as much sugar as cocoa. Then, if there is greater than a 50% sugar to cocoa ratio, you get "sweet chocolate."  Wondering where dark chocolate fits into all this? Dark chocolate is chocolate with no milk (or at least much less milk than milk chocolate). So bittersweet and semisweet chocolates are also “dark chocolates.” The U.S. has no official definition for dark chocolate but European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids in a chocolate to be considered "dark." 

My little Cookie Monster "helping"

 Breaking it down by sugar content:

 unsweetened < bittersweet < semisweet < sweet.

Like a little milk in your coffee?  Then try some “milk chocolate,” which is a sweet chocolate made with milk.  Go figure. But beware of some chocolates.  The U.S. Government requires only a 10% concentration of chocolate in the mix for a product to be called “chocolate.” (The EU regulates at least 25%.) If something is made with less than 10% chocolate, it has to be labeled as “chocolate flavored,” but the “flavored” part is usually written in really small print. (I’ve seen this on chocolate chip cookies.)

I start the baking process and can’t help but love the way this cookie is headed. The batter is pretty darn tasty. As always, I make a mess rolling the balls in powdered sugar, even though I try really hard not to. I read that the trick to these cookies is to be sure that the chocolate dough balls are completely covered in the sugar, so I pay utmost attention to coat each side liberally.  After I have the first couple dozen baking, I can’t help myself…I think we’re gonna need more chocolate. So for the last two dozen, I roll in a few semisweet chocolate chips to the dough.  Why not experiment a little?





see my two new bottom teeth!!!



All of my cookies turn out beautifully.  The chocolate dough spreads just enough to pull the white powdered sugar in all different directions, leaving the proverbial “crinkles” in the cookie.  This cookie came with a colored picture in the BH&G cookbook and thankfully mine look just as good as the experts! Now for the taste test.  The cookies remind me of brownies.  A slight firmness on the outside that is so good to bite into, but super moist and chewy on the inside. The random crunch from the walnuts is a fun textural change. Yet there is a real difference between Cookie A (the original recipe) and Cookie B (the ones with the additional chocolate chips) when it comes to flavor.  Both are very sweet.  But Cookie A is lacking a bit in the chocolate flavor department. They taste more like sugar cookies with a splash of chocolate, while Cookie B is absolutely a chocolate heavy weight. The moment you bite into Cookie B, you know that this is a chocolate cookie.  

Overall, if I were to make these cookies again, I would have to add the chocolate chips or increase the amount of chocolate in the recipe. The idea of adding an entire half pound of chocolate is intriguing, so maybe I’ll do that next time. Needless to say, my hubby (the chocoholic) is a happy camper, and there'll be plenty of powdered sugar on the floor for the dog to lick up. I've got one happy household. ♥

Cookie Grade:   
 “Cookie A” – B+ = good is you love sugar cookies

 “Cookie B” – A+ = great if you love chocolate cookies

What I was jammin’ to: The Beatles radio on Spotify…didn’t have to skip a single song, even though they played Yellow Submarine twice in a row.

COOKIE #13: SANDIES

Hope you don’t have triskaidekaphobia, because here is Cookie #13! I read the name of our unlucky candidate, and I can’t help singing it aloud. To me, Sandies sound like a title to a Beach Boys song. ♫ Saaaa-aa-dies ♪ More commonly referred to as pecan sandies, these classic cookies are not likely to fall to superstition. Who doesn’t have a warm recollection of pecan sandies? Well, besides those with a nut allergy perhaps.

When I realize that I will be cooking up sandies (which I might refer to as pecan sandies throughout this blog due to habit), I immediately think of my family and how I’m going to freeze some of the dough to make cookies for them later. This is a cookie that is made every holiday season in my family, on both sides.  Not because we only like to eat them at Christmas, but because that’s really the only time of year we do a lot of cookie baking. Actually June 23^rd is National Pecan Sandies Day.  So maybe I’ll get into the habit of cooking them twice a year? To be honest, I never really loved them as much as my grandparents, mom, or dad. But the nostalgic value is thru the roof. And after the epic fail of my last cookie (and its blog entry, sorry), I can’t wait to get started.



Annalie helping me "recycle" the butter box

Now you know it’s a well known cookie when you can go to the supermarket and find them on the shelves. Keebler elves work their merry magic and make “Sandies Pecan Shortbread”.  Shortbread? Yes, the foundation for all sandies include the basic shortbread ingredients: butter, sugar, vanilla, and flour. Once you have the shortbread batter, you can include various “add-ins” to give your cookies more character. Chocolate chips, espresso, cinnamon, or in this classic case – pecans.  5 simple ingredients to this wonderful, pure cookie. 

But wait, there are 6 ingredients listed here.  What?! Water again? You might as well shoot me now.  Reading the instructions, you add the water at the same time as the vanilla. Really?! Sigh. Watered down vanilla it is. I’ll try not to focus on this catastrophe and focus rather on the hopefully delicious outcome.



Taking a break for yoga - downward dog

For those who haven’t had a Sandie in their lifetime (you’re obviously not from the south), Sandies are a dense cookie.  You’ll notice that there are no leavening agents in this cookie, ie – no baking soda or powder.  That’s because this cookie is not meant to rise or aerate.  There are also no eggs. Eggs are generally included in recipes to do 4 things: help hold the cookie together, provide a lighter taste and texture, leaven, and increase shelf life. So without eggs in this recipe, it is no surprise that sandies tend to be one of the more crumble-y cookies out there. You take a bite and half of your cookie may fall in your lap. But that’s okay! You get to save some for later! Or you can do what I do, shake the crumbs to the floor for your pooch to eat up.



Sooo good with coffee



 Lastly, in my book all proper pecan sandies should be rolled (we ALWAYS make the ball shaped kind) in powdered sugar.  Delicious, oh-so-messy powdered sugar. So not only will this cookie probably fall to pieces in your lap, it will most likely leave a trail of white dust. Think of eating a funnel cake.  You’ll need a few napkins and a propensity to licking your fingers.

I get this party started buy unwrapping TWO whole sticks of butter, y’all.  The butter engulfs the tiny 1/3 cup of sugar that’s added to it. Next I add my shot glass of vanilla and (sadly) some water. Then its time for the flour and pecans. There is so much flour and not much liquid, I’m worried that it won’t all mix together.  But thank the cookie gods, it blends just fine.  I pop the dough in the fridge for the suggested 3 hours, then get to rolling some balls. *snicker* I freeze a good portion of the dough balls to bake later for my family, knowing that I will be driving down to the farm (home) in a couple of weeks. I bake only 1 dozen pecan sandies, let them cool a moment, and then toss them in the confectioners’ (aka powered) sugar. Voila! Little nuggets of yum.



Maverick - ie the best mop ever


They taste exactly like I remember my grandmother making them – like butter and pecans. Maybe she even used this exact recipe?  This was her BH&G cookbook after all.  Just as I predicted, a few crumbs escape my mouth and tumble down my shirt. I whistle for my dog, lick my fingers, and call it a success.

Cookie Grade:  A = even though these were never my favorite cookies, they taste like memories

What I was jammin’ to: Fisher Price sing alongs with baby

COOKIE #12: GINGER CREAMS

Well, this is the first time that I’ve written the first half of my blog AFTER I’ve already baked and tried the cookies.  Normally I like to write up the intro before tasting them so that I can deliver an unbiased first impression. But I have been so busy this past week that I decided to kill two birds with one stone and baked these Ginger Creams yesterday while I was already in the kitchen cooking. Now I’ve had a good 24 hours to dwell on them.  And frankly, the more I think about them, the more I don’t like them. And now trying to write about them from an unbiased place is moot.  

After the complete awesomeness of the gingersnaps, I went into this cookie optimistic.  You’ll notice that the ingredients are almost exactly the same as the gingersnaps, with the addition of water (which had me scratching my head) and an icing (which you don’t even know about unless you read the entire recipe beforehand).  I did notice that this recipe calls for a very high ratio of flour.  It uses 2 cups of flour for 3 dozen cookies, whereas the gingersnaps used 2.25 cups for 5 dozen. And after mixing the dry ingredients with the wet, it became apparent why the recipe called for the additional water. All that flour made for a thick batter. 

reminds me of a Venn diagram

Adding water to a baking recipe seems almost unethical to me. I feel like the integrity of the ingredients will be watered down.  Like if I were to add water straight to the molasses. What a waste of flavor!  If the dough is a bit tough, change something else or add something that will contribute both moisture and flavor, don’t just add water. Seems like a cop-out.

Speaking of molasses, I do love molasses. Goes great over pancakes. Its distinct flavor is sweet with a slight bitter ending.  One of nature’s candies. What is it exactly? Molasses is the left over liquid that comes from extracting sugar from boiled sugar cane and sugar beets, and it is delicious. When you buy molasses, always look for unsulphured molasses. Unsulphured molasses is made from mature sugar cane, which does not require adding sulphur dioxide during the extraction process. No need for extra chemicals in something you can find it otherwise. There are three grades of molasses: mild, also known as first molasses; dark, or second molasses; and blackstrap.  The three grades come from the number of times the molasses is boiled, thus concentrated. Blackstrap molasses is a source of calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron; one tablespoon provides up to 20% of the daily value of each of those nutrients. Blackstrap is even sold as a health supplement! But even with all these wonderful qualities, molasses wasn’t enough to save this cookie.

I mentioned before that this cookie also has an icing, a Confectioners’ Icing to be precise. In my BH&G cookbook, the icing is stated very matter-of-factly in this cookie recipe. Like I should know what it is?  I find a recipe for Confectioners’ Icing on page 122 in the cakes section and it’s as easy to make as it was to write (it’s only a 4 line blib on the page).  Overall, the icing is the best part of the entire cookie.  I give my little cookie monster a taste, and she agrees.

What did you put on my nose? Let me have a taste! Oh yeah, that's good!

The recipe states to frost the cookies while they are still warm, though I found that just melted the icing, so I let the second batch cool down before I iced them and that worked out much better.  The cookies turn out very light, but cakey.  And the flavor does seem watered down. There isn’t a strong presence of any of the spices or molasses.  They are not exactly sweet, not exactly flavorful, not exactly good.  But I will say that the icing was a nice touch.  Still, after having all this time to think about them, I am disappointed with ginger creams.  In comparison, the gingersnaps should be upgraded from an “A” to an “A+”. As for these cookies….

Cookie Grade: C- = I would love to give them an F, but the icing is okay. They are edible and someone might like them.

What I was jammin’ too:  Spotify radio, I love my new iPhone!!!

COOKIE #11: GINGERSNAPS + "#10.5"

So I ditch the effort to come up with a “snappy” intro for this cookie and decide to jump right in with first thoughts.  To begin with, I take a closer look at the name – Nope, it doesn’t say gingerbread. It says GingerSNAPS. I’ve always assumed they were one and the same?  Next I look at the ingredients and notice that this cookie uses cloves, one spice I don’t happen to have (and I have A LOT of obscure spices).  So I jot down ‘cloves’ on my grocery list.  I get to the store and assume they don’t want chunks of whole cloves in this cookie, so I zone in on the ground clove. Holy moly, have spice prices gone up? To me the spice aisle is like standing in front of a gas pump. You know you’re about to get screwed, but you proceed anyway. Why don’t they have a bulk section for spices like they do for beans, quinoa, etc? Do you have any idea how long it’ll take me to go through this entire bottle of ground cloves? Considering I haven’t needed any in the last decade, more than 10 years perhaps. Unless this cookie is awesome and I happen to start making them more often. Maybe?

Since I know that this spice is going to linger in my cabinet, I begin to wonder, do spices go bad? I’m pretty sure I have some turmeric and anise in there that are more than a few years old. So do they expire? Yes and no. They don’t spoil in the sense that they will make you sick or completely lose their flavor.  However they do lose their potency and complexity after awhile. Whole spices keep longer than ground spices, about 4-5 years. Ground spices stay up to par for about 2-3 years. And crushed herbs (think oregano) keep for only 1-3 years. A good chef can tell if a spice is still good by its smell.  Can’t smell a thing? Then save up those dollars and head to the store for a new bottle.  Want to be sure your spices last the longest? Store them in a cool dark area, preferably in a cabinet away from your stove.  I personally have spices that are over 5 years old and they still smell okay to me, so I’m keeping them around. Though one day, I’d love to go to an actual spice store (think Moroccan market) and go on a crazy spice spree. J

Annalie enjoying her gingersnap with a "pot of tea"

Back to the gingersnaps, also known as ginger biscuits or ginger nuts. Turns out that they are different from gingerbread. They are flatter and crispier.  So crispy that they “snap” when you break them, hence their name.  Gingerbread is lighter, more like bread (imagine that). In my BH&G cookbook, gingerbread is actually listed under the “Cakes” tab and cooked in a cake pan. And while gingerbread is great for making little men out of, if you can bite off its head with a crunch, you may actually be eating a gingersnap man. 





Just a little taste...mmm

The origin of gingersnaps is probably quite old. Spicy cookies like this one have been a favorite since the Middle Ages. Lots of variants of this cookie exist around the world and generally they are considered a winter holiday treat.  Some think that ginger cookies were the first cake/cookie to be related with Christmas. Gingersnaps get their dark color from the molasses that is used and aren’t excessively sweet. Molasses was used as a sweetener rather than refined sugar because it was less expensive.  Most recipes now call for both molasses and sugar. Gingersnaps are great for dipping in tea or coffee.  I even read that they were once traditionally dunked in port wine.  Now that is something I will definitely have to try!

I know that I mentioned before that I only use light brown sugar in my recipes, so that the extra molasses in the dark brown wouldn’t interfere with the cookie’s taste, but this is one recipe I decide to make an exception. Since this recipe calls for molasses and since I already have the dark brown sugar, why not save my light brown sugar (translate: money) for other recipes. The batter smells like Christmas.  I consider changing the radio to Christmas tunes, but shake the idea. I felt like a kid again as I rolled the dough balls in sugar before I baked them. Annalie would love doing this! I can’t wait until my little cookie monster is old enough to help! And since I wasn’t sure if the cookie balls would flatten out, I took the liberty of flattening a few to experiment.  The outcome?  Excellent, top notch, better than store bought spice cookies!  The round cookies I made did not flatten, so they remained little balls that were crispy on the outside and softer on the inside.  But the cookies I flattened, oh SNAP! They were perfectly crunchy without being hard on your teeth. The spicy flavors are just right.  I do taste the clove I spent so much money on, so it was worth it. And I’m excited that I like these cookies so much, because Cookie #12 is another variant of this one, but with icing, so stay tuned!

Cookie Grade: A = why wait until Christmas? I’m going to have mine with coffee right now!

*********** COOKIE #10.5 : SHOT AT REDEMPTION ***********

Cherry Glaze

I mentioned in my last blog that I wanted to try something different to improve upon Cookie #10: Orange Drop Cookies.  They had potential, but were sorely disappointing. The first batch ended up in the trash, while I froze the remaining dough.  Well, today I defrosted the dough in the fridge for a few hours, then baked up another batch.  The twist? I decided to add a glaze on top of them.  I saw that most orange drop cookie recipes online included a simple confectioner’s glaze and thought that made sense. I’ve posted the common glaze recipe I decided to use. But after I baked the cookies, I realized one problem.  Even though I had bought the necessary confectioner’s sugar and orange juice, I go to the fridge and we’ve already drank all the OJ. Oops! So I search for a substitute and find a jar of maraschino cherry juice left over from my Cherry Winks. (I always save the juice to use on top of ice cream.)  That’ll work! So I make a cherry glaze to put over my orange drop cookies, and what an improvement. There aren’t too many fruity cookies, so I like the orange and cherry flavors in this one.  Still not the best cookies in the world, but if you’re gonna make them, you’ve GOT to use the glaze. 



Gingersnap balls, Gingersnap rounds, Orange Drop w/Cherry Glaze



Updated Cookie Grade: C+ = tasty, but really only because of the awesome icing (which is truly awesome). The cookie itself still disappoints.

What I was jammin’ to: Go (the movie) soundtrack