October Cookie of the Month: Ginger snaps

This month the kids baked for the grandpas the favorite cookie of Randy "Uncle Ran Ran" Ward: Ginger Snap cookies

Like the last two months, I posted the photos below, but also made a short video using the pictures via a site called animoto.

Known as the Ginger Nut in most of the English-speaking world and as a variant ‘pepper cookie’ throughout Scandinavia (eg, Swedish: pepparkakor, Finnish: piparkakut, Estonian: piparkoogid, Norwegian: pepperkaker), the Gingersnap actually has its roots in the Middle East, coming to France in 992 from an Armenian monk named Gregory. 

This highly addictive, sugar coated cookie that gets its chewy texture and spicy flavor from adding molasses and (of course) ginger to the batter. Well, the only molasses we had at home was Black Strap molasses. For molasses neophytes, the first time sugar cane is crushed and boiled, the yield is called ‘cane syrup.’ It’s light and sweet. The second time it’s boiled to extract sugar from cane, the residual is molasses. It’s dark and sweet but a little bitter. Then they boil it a third time, separating a dark, viscous goop from the rest of the cane, which is then used for ethyl alcohol and cattle feed. This goop is high in B6 and iron and, because H tested as being slightly anemic, is what we had on hand to make these cookies. We also used actual ginger root instead of crystallized or powdered ginger.

We hope they enjoyed the piparkoogid!