Smitty holding a koala during a visit to Cairns, Australia. He said the koala didn't particularly like being held, and smelled strongly of eucalyptus! First of all, dear reader, it's time you met Smitty. He is my husband, my soul mate, my taste tester, and my deus ex machina--"god of the machine." Smitty is the kind of creative genius who can fix just about anything, trouble shoot problems of all kinds, and find solutions to almost every pickle I find myself in. Plus, he's very handsome, and lots of fun to be around!
This week's baking adventure was billed as "quick and easy," with a yield of 32 cookies. "Thirty two?" I muttered to myself. "That's not nearly enough! Those will be gone in about 15 minutes!"
One of the joys of baking is how it allows me to connect with people. I have met so many interesting new friends while handing out freshly baked goodies!
Therefore, I would definitely have to double this recipe. But why stop there? Why not QUADRUPLE the recipe?! What a great idea!
(I can ALWAYS think of ways to complicate my own life.)
One of the joys of baking is how it allows me to connect with people. I have met so many interesting new friends while handing out freshly baked goodies!
Therefore, I would definitely have to double this recipe. But why stop there? Why not QUADRUPLE the recipe?! What a great idea!
(I can ALWAYS think of ways to complicate my own life.)
Sifting the dry ingredients into my 6-quart Kitchenaid mixer bowl. The quadruple quantities added up to a mound of Himalayan proportions.
Dear reader, if you haven't tried Lyle's Golden Syrup, do give it a try! Rose uses it in many of her recipes--notably her pecan pie.
For the gingersnaps, the butter is gently melted with golden syrup....oh no! I don't have enough golden syrup for my quadruple batch? A run to the store revealed that my local grocer has stopped carrying this fantastic ingredient. Gulp. I had to substitute the missing amount with light corn syrup. Fortunately, Rose had provided for that; corn syrup was the alternate ingredient in the recipe.
The syrup-butter mixture is added to the dry ingredients bowl. It was a large batch, of course, but well within the capacity of my 6 quart bowl. Suddenly, a loud and horrible CRACK. Look at what happened:
For the gingersnaps, the butter is gently melted with golden syrup....oh no! I don't have enough golden syrup for my quadruple batch? A run to the store revealed that my local grocer has stopped carrying this fantastic ingredient. Gulp. I had to substitute the missing amount with light corn syrup. Fortunately, Rose had provided for that; corn syrup was the alternate ingredient in the recipe.
The syrup-butter mixture is added to the dry ingredients bowl. It was a large batch, of course, but well within the capacity of my 6 quart bowl. Suddenly, a loud and horrible CRACK. Look at what happened:
My plastic bowl-scraping beater blade met an untimely end in a oversized batch of gingersnap dough. Now I will have to pause to scrape the bowl and then hand wash the aluminum beater until I get a new one?! How is a spoiled rotten Alpha Baker to deal with such an inconvenience?!
Smitty said I looked like I had seen a ghost. I was so afraid I had broken the mixer! I separated the mixture into two bowls, and mixed it up in two batches, then combined it by hand. I was seized with a sudden fear of damaging my mixer.
Right about this point, I tasted the "dough." Hmm...not very sweet. I know that Rose commented in her recipe notes that she had reduced the sugar by 60 percent. Wait a minute....did I even add the sugar?!
FULL STOP. I had forgotten to add the sugar! Rebooted the mixing with a combination of three parts India Tree castor sugar and one part light brown sugar. The recipe called for golden baker's sugar. I was never able to find that product, so I used Rose's alternative, the castor sugar and brown sugar mixture.
This dough seemed very crumbly, but perhaps that's because I made such an outsized batch. I weighed portions and wrapped them in plastic wrap to be refrigerated.
The dough didn't seem to be holding together very well. Smitty's hands are stronger than mine, so he was pressed into service to make up the little dough packages the size of baseballs.
Some of Smitty's little dough baseballs ready for the fridge. A quadruple batch made MANY of these little packages.
Finally, all of the dough was portioned out and tucked in for its chilly little rest before baking. I was tidying up the kitchen and noticed a bowl....full of beaten eggs and extra egg whites that had never been added to the dough!! I had been on the point of adding the eggs when the mixer paddle had broken. I never got back to it! NO WONDER the "dough" was crumbly and didn't hold together!
Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. "Why, Smitty?! Why did you marry such a stupid woman?!" I have asked him this many times over the last 30 years. His answer-- "You weren't that stupid when I married you..." (Yes, dear reader, he is still breathing. I can tell when he is teasing me.)
Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. "Why, Smitty?! Why did you marry such a stupid woman?!" I have asked him this many times over the last 30 years. His answer-- "You weren't that stupid when I married you..." (Yes, dear reader, he is still breathing. I can tell when he is teasing me.)
The dough baseballs were crumbled back into two bowls and the eggs were added, some to each bowl. Because I needed to combine the contents of two bowls evenly into one big batch, I made a discovery--
USE YOUR DOUGH HOOK to easily mix the contents of two bowls together. It works like a charm and made quick work of it.
Without the eggs, it would have been a huge batch of ginger-flavored shortbread, although now that I think about it that wouldn't have been a bad thing!
USE YOUR DOUGH HOOK to easily mix the contents of two bowls together. It works like a charm and made quick work of it.
Without the eggs, it would have been a huge batch of ginger-flavored shortbread, although now that I think about it that wouldn't have been a bad thing!
By this time, I had been in the kitchen for about three hours making this "quick and easy" recipe. No weighing the dough packages this time--just sloppy blobs of dough hastily plunked on pieces of plastic wrap and tossed into the fridge.
Ready to bake--FINALLY!
I did make one small change to the recipe. I rolled the balls very lightly in a tiny bit of turbinado sugar for a little bit of sparkle and crunch.
Straight from the oven, the cookies are puffy, but they flatten out on cooling.
If you don't multiply it, forget to add key ingredients or break essential kitchen appliances, it's an easy recipe!
These really are delicious cookies. Good thing I made more than 32--Smitty and I have already polished off 10 of them in the past couple of hours! Our nest is empty--we don't have to worry about being bad influences on our children anymore.
I might like a bit more ginger in them next time, as we found them almost too mild, despite using a new jar of fresh ground ginger. I will be delivering them tomorrow to several tasters for their feedback. Thanks, Rose, for another great recipe!
These really are delicious cookies. Good thing I made more than 32--Smitty and I have already polished off 10 of them in the past couple of hours! Our nest is empty--we don't have to worry about being bad influences on our children anymore.
I might like a bit more ginger in them next time, as we found them almost too mild, despite using a new jar of fresh ground ginger. I will be delivering them tomorrow to several tasters for their feedback. Thanks, Rose, for another great recipe!
UPDATE: All of Rose's recipes list ingredient amounts in volume and in weight. The Alpha Bakers' coordinator noticed that the volume measurement of ginger in the recipe is far higher than the weight measurement. She contacted Woody Wolston, Rose's collaborator--he said, "that's a mistake." I haven't baked Rose's recipes by volume in years, because weighing is so much faster and more accurate. That explains why the cookies have such a subtle ginger flavor. I used half as much as Rose intended!
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