Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Alpha Bakers - Gingersnaps

Once upon a time, in a far-off kingdom. No wait, it was a democracy. Or a collective farm. Or a free anarchist experiment in non-authoritarian communism. Once. A strange glow of sunlight streamed in and illuminated...the gingersnap.
I have a real thing for ginger cookies. I once spent the better part of several months testing different versions of large squashy ginger molasses cookies and hard gingerbread recipes to find the best one (verdict--Tartine recipe for cut-out cookies and gingerbread houses, still haven't found the dream squishy sugar-crusted molasses style cookie, and I've already made the ones in TBB). With these gingersnaps, I was on familiar ground, or so I thought. I did everything I was supposed to. I chilled, I weighed out the dough balls (who DOES that?), and I baked with precision. I also forgot to add ginger.
       
Needless to say, this made the first round of cookies out of the oven a little dull, with a pronounced taste of leavening and not much else. For the second round, I sprinkled each cookie with ginger, and for the third, I dumped a large pile of ginger right on to the chilled dough and squished it in. Much improved. I think I'll quite like these when I make them properly. Or with a little extra ginger. With ginger, more is almost always more.

Been baking quite a lot lately, between the 'blizzard' and the wall. Sometimes I bake ahead in TBB, take a picture, and hope I'll remember. I also made these Pecan Potato Chip Cupcakes, from Bay Ridge star bakers the Robicellis. RECOMMENDED. 

5 comments:

evil cake lady said...

i love your opening line! i once made carrot cake and forgot the carrots. stay warm out there in blizzard land.

Jill said...

Oh man, I've forgotten main ingredients too. I usually utter a few bad words and improvise like you did. Is it just the sun, or are some of the cookies a lot lighter than others? Just wondering if your improvising changed the look at all? BTW, love the Potato Chip Cupcake recipe. I like to eat chocolate ice cream and plain potato chips together. The salt and chocolate are just heavenly. :)

Unknown said...

Absolutely hilarious! I don't even remember reading the instruction to weigh the balls. And I think that if anarchists had a cookie then it would be a Gingersnap.

Katya said...

Jill, some of the cookies are a lot lighter--in addition to leaving out the ginger from the first round, I also underbaked them as per the recipe and then took the subsequent batches to a darker place.

Vicki said...

I'm with you, more ginger is more! Next go around with this recipe candied ginger is also going in. So wishing some of your snow would head out west.