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.