Shitshow Kitchen: Gingersnaps!

I love these cookies. LOVE. So does everyone else. Usually, I make a double or triple batch of them, and freeze some of the dough in balls so I can pop a few into the toaster oven at a time and make mini-batches of fresh cookies. Otherwise I eat ALL THE COOKIES immediately, the first day, and feel like I am going to die.

Ingredients:
1 C packed brown sugar
3/4 C shortening
1/4 C molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 C flour
2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon, 1 t ginger, 1/2 t cloves, 1/4 t mace, 1/2 t nutmeg, 1/4 t salt
1/4 C Turbinado sugar

The molasses is Grandma's, so you know it's good.

That yellow stuff floating in the water? That's how I measure shortening. Fill a measuring cup with two cups of water or so, then put the shortening in until the water goes up 3/4 cup. Ta-da! You do not have a nasty shortening mess to clean up, scrape out, etc. Just pull it out of the water and throw it in the bowl. YOU ARE A GENIUS.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of molasses?

So cream together the first four ingredients.

Holy yum, Batman.

DO NOT EAT IT ALL YET. Add the flour, baking soda, and spices. I think you're supposed to mix this by hand, but eff that. I am mixing it in the mixer. That is what modern appliances are for, yo. So baking does not have to be work.

EAT ME NOW

Mix it just until it's all incorporated, but before it has filed its 1120 (HAHA TAX HUMOR). Then pour some of the turbinado sugar into a little bowl. If you don't have turbinado sugar, it is NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. You can use regular white sugar, it just won't look as cool or have that crunch. Heck, you can skip the sugar if you want. Roll the dough into balls.

Once again, so easy a child can do it. This one has cookie dough under his fingernails. Yum.

I prefer to make my cookies super tiny, because then I can eat more of them. I don't know, it is psychological. Dunk one side into the sugar and then put it on the cookie sheet, sugar side up.

Crunchy sugar makes me happy

You can put them fairly close together, but they will spread. This is also how I freeze them-- on the cookie sheet. Just throw the whole thing into the freezer, let them freeze up for a couple hours, then throw them all in a ziplock. That way they don't stick together.

WE ARE SO CLOSE!

Bake them for 10 minutes or so. It's kind of hard to tell if they are done, because they're already brownish, so they don't really brown. If you're looking at the color of the cookies to judge doneness, you will WAY overbake them. So just trust me: 10 minutes, 12 at the most.

Puffy and slightly blurry because I was quivering with antici



pation

Let them sit on the cookie sheet for TWO MINUTES. If you try to take them off right away, you will have a mess on your hands, because they are super soft. I speak from experience. You need to let them fall, like this:

We have collapsed like a house of cards

Take them off after two minutes, or they will stick to the pan and you will have to chip them off with a carpentry tool. Again, I speak from experience. Let them cool on the rack for at least one more minute before you eat them, or you will burn the shit out of your mouth.

Someone is not so good with the following directions thing...where on earth did he learn that.

If you make them tiny like mine, which is between the size of a quarter and a half-dollar, this recipe makes about 80 cookies. I think. Give or take the few that we ate before I got my count finished. These are best with milk.

Who am I kidding, they are best with anything.