Cook the Book: Fairy Gingerbread Cookies - Hit or Miss?

I love America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country. I subscribe to Cook's Country magazine and really enjoy it, but I rarely make any of the recipes. I love to bake, but it is often super time consuming so I usually only do it on the weekends. Plus, I love taking the results into work, to share and to get them out of my house. So, for the February/March edition, the cover is story is a recipe for Fairy Gingerbread Cookies, an updated and improved version in a 19th century cookbook. I love gingerbread and the recipe pretty doable, and I had everything on hand; a definite plus because I didn't want to leave my house. So, early Sunday morning, I ventured into the kitchen to bake these ginger cookies. My Fairy Gingerbread Cookies didn't come out exactly like the picture, for a few reasons I think, but they were really delicious, light and gingery with a delightful snap that I adore in gingersnaps. 

This image is taken from Cook's Country, where I got the recipe. My version were delicious, but did not look like this!

According to Ericka Bruce in Cook's Country, the recipe was originally found in Jessup Whitehead's 1893 book Cooking for Profit where the Fairy Gingerbread Cookies were described as a popular sweet treat to be served between rounds of Euchre. Since I love Euchre (a game popularized in the 1890's in the midwest and PA that is similar to Spades), I thought these cookies would be just the thing to brighten a cold Chicago winter weekend. Also, I thought it might inspire me to find some Euchre partners...it hasn't yet.

Ingredients
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
9 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
4 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature


Now I said above that I had all the ingredients on hand, and I should preface that statement: I had all the ingredients or some version of the ingredients on hand. This is where I think my Fairy Gingerbread Cookies took a turn from the Cook's Country version. To go down through the list, I didn't soften the butter as well as I could have. I should have taken the buter out of the fridge much sooner and allow it to really soften. I did not have light brown sugar, but dark brown sugar which I think added to the dark color of my cookies. I did have fresh ginger, but did not read the suggestions close enough and had a bit of an issue with the grating. Cook's Country suggests using a rasp grater and freezing a 2in piece of peeled ginger for 30 minutes. I also did not have whole milk, but skim, and I did not allow it to come to room temperature. I am sure all these things added into why my cookies didn't look like the magazine, but they were still yummy! The recipe also calls for the treats to be spread out on 2 cookie sheets, but I kind of freaked out and made them only one 1 sheet. I suggest making these delicate treats per the recipe, but if you deviate, I am sure that they will still turn out great!

As always, I prep everything before getting started. I measure everything out and put them into bowls and get everything ready. Grate the ginger and prep all your supplies. Trust me, it much better to prep first and then get to baking. If you get everything ready first you can pay more attention to the recipe, which in baking is pretty important.

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and prepare your cookie sheets. Spray the cookie sheets with cooking spray (I like the SmartBalance spray) and cover with a sheet of parchment paper.

2. "Heat the ground ginger in a small skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute." I did this, but I did not read really closely and threw in my fresh ground ginger and heated them together, which did not work all that well. I also ended up heating them for about 5 minutes because the ground ginger wasn't roasting well, because of the liquid from the fresh ginger.

3. Combine the flour, toasted ginger (make sure it is only the dry ginger, because you will add the fresh ginger later), baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Mix everything together in the bowl. You may see the little "hairs" in the flower, these are not chunks of my hair, they are strands from the fresh grated ginger, that I made more stringy by browning it with the dry ginger. Oops!

4. Using a stand mixer (if you have one) beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, on medium-high speed.

Make sure that the 9 tablespoons of brown sugar are tightly packed. Use light brown sugar if you want to maintain the light color in the picture.

Beating the butter and brown sugar should end up looking like this. You want the mixture to be light and fluffy. 

5. Add fresh ginger here (ooops!) and vanilla and mix until incorporated, about 30 seconds-ish.

Had I added the fresh ginger here, I think this would have been even more smooth. 

6. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with 2 additions of milk.

I added the flour in 3 parts, but then just threw the milk in like an after thought. I am sure that there is a reason that is all scientific that you add the milk between the flour, but I didn't read the directions closely enough. 

7. You are now ready to spread the batter evenly on the 2 prepared cookie sheets. Each sheet should have about 3/4 cup of batter. Do not fret if it looks like there is not a lot of batter on the sheet. These cookies should be really thin. I didn't believe and just put all the batter on one sheet. These cookies are meant to be thin.

You should use about 1/2 of the batter on each cookie sheet and spread it using an angled spatula.

Spread it evenly on your cookie sheet. Again, I freaked out and put it all together on one sheet.

It should be much thinner than what I have here, and it is definitely easier with an angled spatula (I don't have one, but I bent a spatula I had and it worked much better. I don't suggest trying; it was rather unfortunate because I couldn't bend it back. 

8. Bake until a deep golden brown, about 16 - 20 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. I baked it 16 minutes, but that felt a bit too long. Assess halfway through and determine how much more time you will need.

9. Once completely baked, take the cookie sheets out and score immediately using a chef's knife or a pizza cutter.

See, they are MUCH darker than the Cook's Country picture above. I used a pizza cutter to score my cookies.  

10. Once the cookies are cool, about 20 minutes, you can remove the cookies from the parchment. I took the cookies off the cookie sheet shortly after I scored them so the bottoms did not get too dark or burnt. My cookie sheets keep cooking the bottoms, so I make sure to remove stuff pretty quickly.

stacked high, and ended up pretty dark, but they were yummy!

Although I did not follow the recipe exactly, and had to tell people that there was fresh ginger in the cookies (and it wasn't strands of hair) I would definitely say these were a Hit! They have a refreshing amount of ginger and snap and delicious. Now, it is time to set up a rousing game of Euchre and serve these in between rounds.

Cook the Book title is inspired by Serious Eats where they have a Cook the Book column about recipes from a cookbook.