ginger molasses cookies

the geek loves molasses cookies. he also loves the triple gingersnaps we get from trader joes. these ginger molasses cookies are a little bit of both. the recipe is a mish-mash of molasses cookie recipes from around the web (with the primary influence being the pioneer woman's recipe for spicy molasses cookies).

equipment:

electric mixer (hand-held or standing) unless you have a bionic arm that can mix and mix and mix

cookie sheets

small ice cream scooper (optional, helps to make uniformly sized cookies)

wire racks (optional, helps with the cooling process)

ingredients:

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c dark brown sugar (or light brown or just use white if that's all you've got)

3/4 c crisco vegetable shortening*

1/4 c molasses (unsulphured, NOT blackstrap)

1 egg

1 t vanilla

2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t cloves

1 t ground ginger

1/4 t ground cardamom (lovely flavor, but it's not cheap. no need to buy it unless you plan to use it in other dishes)

1/4 t salt

2 1/2 t baking soda

1/3 c crystallized ginger, chopped

1/4 c sugar (for rolling)

preparation:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees f. pour 1/4 c sugar onto a dish for rolling the cookie dough.
2. in a large bowl, mix together sugar, shortening, molasses, egg and vanilla until well combined.
3. in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger, ground cardamom, salt and baking soda. add mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. (or as recommended in the pioneer woman's recipe- dump dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients and gently stir the dry ingredients together before mixing into the wet ingredients).
4. fold in crystallized ginger.
5. using a small ice cream scooper, scoop dough and roll into walnut sized balls with your hands. no scooper? just pinch off the dough and roll. roll each ball in the dish of sugar to generously coat.
6. place sugar-coated dough on an ungreased cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. bake for 9 to 11 minutes; until at least a minute after the cookies begin to crinkle and crack.
7. let cool for a few minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack. right out of the oven, cookies will be soft; they will become more firm and chewy as they cool. store in airtight container or freeze (they freeze and defrost well).

*some recipes call for butter or butter flavored shortening. i made a batch with butter flavored crisco and thought the buttery-ness competed too much with the spices. might be because i had the simple flavor of the gingersnap cookies in my mind? the cookies pictured above are from the buttery batch; they're a lot flatter than the regular batch. i would have liked to include a picture of the regular crisco cookies, but they were gone by the time i took the picture.

update: made these again with regular crisco and took a picture before they disappeared.