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A RIFF ON GRANDMOTHER’S GINGER COOKIES
Ingredients
  • 2 cups 280g all purpose flour
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon preferably Vietnamese
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • A pinch of Piment d’Espelette
  • 12 tablespoons 180g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup vanilla sugar
  • ¼ cup blackstrap molasses the only kind easily available in France, and its gorgeous
  • 1 large egg
Instructions
  1. Sift together all the dry ingredients onto a piece of parchment paper.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
  3. Line two baking sheets with parchment (you can use the parchment you sifted the ingredients onto).
  4. Mix the butter in a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer until it is soft and fluffy, then add the sugar and continue mixing until the batter is light. Mix in the vanilla and the molasses, add the egg, and after scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing until everything is thoroughly combined, slowly add the dry ingredients, mixing until they are thoroughly blended into the butter mixture.
  5. Wet your hands and roll the dough into rounds the size of a small golfball – about 1 tablespoon of dough and place them on the baking sheet, leaving about ½-inch (1.25cm) between each ball.
  6. Bake in the center of the oven until the cookies are puffed and baked all the way through, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.
  7. If you don’t eat up all the cookies at once, the others store well in an airtight container for at least a week, and are fabulous dipped into hot coffee or, for the juveniles among you, cold milk!
  8. About 40 cookies