Home › Cookies-Doughnuts › Ginger Cookies
Ginger Cookies
2 C molases. 1/2 C sour cream. 1 C shortening. 2 eggs 1 T ginger 3½ level t soda Flour to roll Roll thin, cut out and bake in quick oven. Put two together with divinity made as follows: er. 2 C sugar 1/2 C Karo corn syrup 1/2 C water Whites 2 eggs Boil sugar, syrup and water until brittle when dropped in cold wat- Remove from fire and pour over stiffly beaten egg whites. Add 1 t flavoring and beat until thick enough to spread. 1 C sugar Mrs. Forrest Thomson.
As printed, the cookie half of this recipe is incomplete — a typesetting casualty typical of community cook books, where contributors submitted ingredient lists from memory and the compositor set them in whatever order they arrived. The divinity filling, by contrast, is complete and workable.
- The ingredient list is short a fat and a liquidTwo eggs, ginger, soda, a stray cup of sugar and "flour to roll" will not make a rolled cookie dough. A ginger cookie of this vintage, with this much soda, may well have called for molasses and a shortening, neither of which appears on the page, though the original amounts cannot be recovered. Treat this as a document rather than a set of working directions, or use a rolled molasses-ginger cookie recipe you already trust.
- Why the soda looks alarmingThree and a half level teaspoons of soda is far too much for two eggs and a cup of sugar, but it would suit a larger batch built on an acidic ingredient such as dark molasses, which the soda neutralises. The quantity suggests, without proving, that such an ingredient was dropped from the list.
- AbbreviationsT is a tablespoon, t a teaspoon, C a cup. "Level" was worth specifying because heaped and rounded spoonfuls were still in common use alongside level ones.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-425F. Thin rolled cookies want a short bake, watched closely, since spice doughs go from set to scorched quickly.
- "Brittle when dropped in cold water"That is the hard-crack stage, 300–310F on a thermometer. Divinity syrup taken only to soft ball will never set firm enough to spread and sandwich.
- KaroA brand of corn syrup, still sold under the same name; the light variety is the usual choice for divinity, though the recipe does not specify. It is there to inhibit crystallisation; do not substitute honey or maple syrup, which will change the set and the colour.
- Pouring the syrupAdd it to the beaten whites in a thin steady stream with the mixer running, never in a lump, or the whites cook into strands. Then beat until it holds a shape and loses its gloss — this can take several minutes and the moment passes quickly, after which it turns to fudge in the bowl.
- HumidityDivinity fails on damp days. It absorbs moisture from the air and stays tacky no matter how long it is beaten. Dry weather is the practical prerequisite.
This page is a good example of what church and society cook books actually were: a fundraising collection of members' handwriting, typed or set in haste, with the contributor's name carrying more authority than the completeness of the list. The divinity half places it firmly in the early twentieth century — Karo corn syrup went on the American market in the first years of the 1900s and was promoted hard for candy-making, and "divinity" as a name for boiled-syrup meringue candy appears in American recipe collections in that same period, its origin generally traced to the South rather than documented to any one kitchen. Sandwiching two thin ginger cookies with a white candy filling was a way to turn an everyday spice cookie into something fit for a church supper table without any expensive ingredient beyond sugar; molasses-and-ginger dough was among the cheapest baking a household could do, and the ginger itself was a pantry staple long before vanilla was.