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Ginger Snaps, Rich Kind
8 ounces of butter. 8 ounces of white sugar. 3 eggs. 1 to 2 ounces of ground ginger. 1 teaspoonful of baking powder. 1 1/2 pounds flour. Make same way as cookies. Sift granulated sugar over the sheet of dough and run the rolling pin over to make it adhere before cutting out the cakes.
A professional bakeshop formula given in weights, with the method left to a cross-reference. Two things need attention before you start: the ginger quantity and the fact that the dough carries no liquid beyond three eggs.
- Weights, converted8 oz butter is 2 sticks; 8 oz white sugar is about 1 1/8 cups granulated; 1 1/2 lb flour is roughly 5 1/2 cups. Weigh the flour if you can, since scooping will push it well past the intended ratio.
- The ginger is not a typo, but treat 1 oz as the ceilingAn ounce of ground ginger is roughly 1/3 cup, already fierce by modern palates, and the upper figure of 2 oz may reflect bulk spice of uncertain strength. Start at 1 oz, or less if your ginger is fresh and fragrant.
- The dough will be dryFive and a half cups of flour against 8 oz butter, 8 oz sugar and 3 eggs gives a stiff, sandy mass with no molasses or milk to bind it. If it will not cohere, add water or milk a tablespoon at a time only until it does, or the snap will be lost.
- "Make same way as cookies"Following a standard cookie method: cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time, then work in the flour sifted with the baking powder and ginger. Chill the dough before rolling.
- The sugar-rolling step is the pointSifting granulated sugar over the rolled sheet and passing the pin over it presses a crust of sugar into the surface, which caramelises in the oven and gives the snap its crackled top. Do it just before cutting, and cut without re-rolling the sugared face if you can.
- Roll thinA snap is thin by definition. Aim for about 1/8 inch; at 1/4 inch these bake into soft ginger cookies instead.
- OvenThe original gives none. 375-400F for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges have set and coloured, suits a thin snap. They crisp as they cool, so pull them while the centres still give slightly.
- YieldA large batch: close to three pounds of dough, so expect a great many two-inch snaps, the number depending on how thin you roll. They keep well in a tin.
Ginger snaps in nineteenth-century American baking were usually molasses goods: cheap, dark, and hard enough to travel. Calling a version "rich" is often taken to signal the opposite end of the trade, a butter-and-egg dough on white sugar rather than syrup, which is why this one bakes pale gold instead of brown. The heavy hand with ground ginger may reflect how the spice reached a commercial bakeshop of the period, in bulk and stored for long stretches, though how much that shaped the quantities called for is uncertain. The sugar rolled into the sheet is a quick way to get a glittering, crackled finish across a whole tray without glazing each piece by hand.