|swedish ginger snaps

I do not remember where i found this post, but i’m sharing it!!!! I haven’t tried making my own batch yet, but if any of you do, come back and send me photos, and let me know how they taste!!!! 

½ lb. butter 1 ½ cup white sugar 2 tsp baking powder or 1 tsp baking soda plus 1 tsp cream of tartar 3 ¼ cup flour 4 TBSP dark Karo syrup 1 egg 3 tsp cinnamon 3 tsp cloves 3 tsp ginger

What, you wanted more? That’s all she gave me. No instructions, no baking time, no demo, nuthin. LOL

But after having the recipe for nearly ten years, I’ve learned a few things.

The MOST important thing is this: Your spices must be absolutely the freshest available or you will be keenly disappointed and mad for going through this much work for nothing. This is absolutely crucial. I know spices are expensive; there are ways to make it easier and I’ll deal with that later.

Here is how to make them:

Go ahead and cream the sugar, butter, egg, & Karo syrup together in that large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine your dry ingredients, taking special pains to incorporate the spices throughout. I use a whisk to do that. Using an electric mixer, add the dry ingredients to the wet, scraping the bowl, etc. The finished product will be crumbly, so don’t panic. The warmth of your kitchen/hands will make it malleable.

At this point, many online recipes will tell you to refrigerate the dough overnight in the bowl. I find that to be silly, as it makes your task more difficult.

Instead, you will need parchment paper (you’ll thank me later for this) AND waxed paper. Measure out one cup of the crumbly stuff, firmly packed, and deposit on your parchment paper. Put the waxed paper on top and roll out your dough. I hope you’re sitting when you read this: this dough must be rolled out to 1/8" or less (about the width of a nickel coin). That’s one of the reason these cookies are not widely available in the retail market…they’re delicate!

Roll out each cookie sheet’s worth of dough and use your cookie cutter. Do NOT remove the wasted dough between the cookies just yet, because it will make you insane. (Just a note here, the Swedish Pepparkakor is normally the one shaped into gingerbread people, etc. and frosted with piping. Our family only made small round cookies. You do what you want, however.) That said, I’m going to tell you to do something completely different. Find a SQUARE cookie cutter (and you’ll thank me later for this, too) I got lucky and found one at Michael’s, the craft shop.

Anyway, take the sheets of dough, neatly rolled out and already cut into shapes, and stack them up on a cookie sheet and then, you can put it in the fridge overnight.

Next day, the dough will be stiffer and you’ll be able to remove any wasted dough in between shapes much easier, if you work fast. And if you used a square cookie cutter, you’ll have almost no waste! Working quickly, you’ll be able to give them a little space in between on your parchment paper. They don’t need a lot of space, perhaps ¼" or so. Leave the rest of the sheets in the fridge until time to bake otherwise the dough gets soft and a pain to deal with.

Every oven is different, as you know. My oven in S. Utah is gas, but my oven in Ohio was electric. meh I find that 375 degrees seems about right. Because of their thinness, you’ll want to keep a sharp eye on them. Normally, about 7 minutes in my oven does the trick. You won’t want them in long enough for the edges to start to burn, of course. Bake them ON the parchment paper with the waxed paper removed (you knew this of course, FReepers, but just in case any Daily Kooks are reading). When done, slide that entire sheet of parchment paper on a rack or flat surface to cool. For heaven’s sake, don’t try to pull them off until they are cool!

Yield: NOT NEARLY ENOUGH

Fair warning, once you make these and others try them, you’ll be expected to make them forever. There will be no going back. LOL

Yes, they are a bit of a pain in the pass, but they are beyond delightful. And here is a bit of a quirky thing, FWIW: This is an overwhelming favorite cookie of the male members of the family. Go figure. More than cookies with frosting, sprinkles, chocolate and all the rest. This is the one they grab by the handful and gobble up.