We often said that Grandma Mary Ellen was a “cookie grandma” rather than a “pie grandma.” She always sent us home from her house with a bag or two of cookies from the big freezer in the basement—chocolate chip, starburst, or cut-out cookies… We each had our favorites. One of the stars in her cookie repertoire was her ginger snap cookies. These crispy molasses cookies seem to please everyone—the ginger, cinnamon, and cloves are warming and serve to balance the molasses.
Growing up, we ate Grandma’s ginger cookies year-round. I was well into my 30s and living in Strasbourg before I realized that this type of spice cookie is perhaps best suited to the winter holidays. So this year, I dusted off Grandma’s recipe and got to work on making it my own. Her recipe calls for vegetable shortening, but that’s not an ingredient I keep on hand, so I swapped in softened butter. I admit that the butter makes for a less crisp cookie. My brother Jack says my version has less “snap.” To be perfectly honest, I prefer my slightly softer ginger cookies to Grandma’s firmer rendition.
Ginger cookies call for a beverage pairing. My dad prefers a stack of frozen ginger snaps with a tall glass of cold milk. I pair them with a full-bodied black tea that stands up to the spices and molasses. I am sure that coffee would also complement the flavors of these ginger snaps.
Ginger Cookies
For the most part, I am maintaining the format and wording of this “vintage” recipe. I like how simply it reads and how easy it is to prepare. If you prefer a more “snappy” cookie, substitute vegetable shortening for the butter.
- Yield: 24 cookies
- Category: Celebrations, Sweets
Ingredients
This recipe has no ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325.
- Cream: 1 c sugar and 1/4 c room temperature butter until light and creamy, about 4 minutes.
- Add: 1 unbeaten egg, 4 T molasses, and 1 c flour. Mix well.
- Into 1 cup add: 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1 tsp ground ginger, and 2 tsp baking soda.
- Fill cup with flour, sift into egg and molasses mixture. Stir until just incorporated.
- Chill for 2 hours to over night.
- Use a tablespoon to scoop dough. Roll into balls with hands, then roll in granulated sugar. (For a more "sparkly" cookie, use turbinado sugar)
- Bake for 11-12 minutes. Cool a few minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to wire rack.
The Kentucky Derby has come and gone, and today is Mother’s Day. What plans do you have for your garden this year? The harvest of my beloved yet modest 
This refreshingly old-fashioned recipe comes from Shelley and Bruce Richardson’s A Tea for All Seasons. I have made small modifications. I have found that different brands of rose water vary in strength, so tread lightly, especially when making your glaze. The 1/4 tsp rose water I use in the glaze is conservative. Add more if...
On the rare occasion that someone tells me they are not fond of chocolate, I wonder what is wrong with them. How could someone not love rich, decadent chocolate desserts? A chewy brownie, a slab of homemade chocolate cake, or a square of dark chocolate as an afternoon pick-me-up…
While the grandeur of Versailles resides in its Château, its charm is surely in its diminutive streets, passages, and courtyards. Lying in the shadow of the Château, la rue des Deux Portes (The Street with Two Doors) has mixed residental and business since the 17th and 18th centuries. Connecting the rue Carnot to the Place du Marché, boutiques and restaurants saturate this short pedestrian way. La rue des Deux Portes is lively, local, and picturesque, well worth a quick visit after your market trip or Château visit. Alternatively, make an afternoon of shopping on this street and in the antique district, le Quartier des Antiquaires, also located close to the Place du Marché.
Tiny white chocolate chips add a creamy sweetness to Elmwood Inn’s Southern Pecan Black Tea. I add a touch of maple syrup to this Tea Toddy, which pairs well with the caramel notes of Kentucky Bourbon.
Visiting the Château of Versailles can make for a long day: lines, crowds, and so much sumptuous history to take in! For sanity’s sake, why not break up the day with a calm, delectable lunch?
[DECEMBER 2018 NOTE: The Rabbit Hole’s Redfern location will close after December 23, 2018, but Barangaroo location will still be open.]
T Totaler is a homegrown tea business, focusing on Australian grown teas and botanicals. Founded in 2012, Amber and Paul Sunderland make custom tea blends for restaurants, develop tea-based “mocktails”, and teach workshops. At their Newtown tea bar, I sampled a dazzling Teagroni, an iced White Peony tea with rose petals, and a hot Australian grown Sencha with coconut and lemon myrtle. Each one was perfect in its own way, and the tea bar’s decor was charmingly cozy with fiddle leaf figs and apothecary jars. Since my visit, T Totaler has opened a second location in the center of Sydney, which is now their primary location.
One of Sydney’s favorite dumpling restaurants, Lotus The Galeries also features a range of teas. I had the privilege and pleasure of sharing dumplings and tea cocktails with Sydney’s own teagramming sisters Neha and Smruthi. This charming and generous sister team marries the art of tea with the art of cocktails on their 
Sydney’s innovative and cutting edge tea scene also leaves room for traditional afternoon tea that showcases high end teas and fine pastries incorporating local ingredients. I spent a leisurely and luxurious afternoon at the Langham Sydney. This afternoon teatime is perhaps the most perfect I’ve ever experienced—attentive service, perfectly-infused teas, delightful savories and sweets, a cozy armchair. The pink champagne enhanced my languorous afternoon! I was able to sample a number of teas—a subtle Orange blossom tea, a creamy black Assam, and a white tea with melon. The scones were warm and crumbly, and other sweets were graced with an Australian touch: a hibiscus and guava tart and a cherry lamington. The savories were traditional and spot on: a curried free range egg finger sandwich as well as a prawn, shallot and dill finger sandwich.
Although there is much to be done in the coming days, I am taking a hygge day—choral Christmas music, ginger spice candle, fuzzy clothes, baking,and tea…
“…I brought to my lips a spoonful of tea in which I had softened a piece of madeleine. But at the exact moment when the mouthful mixed with cake crumbs touched my palate, I shivered, attentive to this extraordinary thing that was taking place in me. A delicious pleasure had invaded me, isolated, no notion of its cause. It had instantly made me indifferent to the vicissitudes of life, made its disasters harmless, its brevity illusory, in the same way that love operates, filling me with a precious essence: or more accurately this essence wasn’t in me, it was me.” –Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann