Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

"I left that evening with a bag of gingersnaps for the ride home and the conviction that these deserved a place in the pantheon of great all-American cookies." – Dorie Greenspan, from Dorie's Cookies











There are some things about cookies that store-bought simply can't do justice.  The gingersnap is as about a good example of this as could be.  There are good gingersnaps out there, ones that capture that nearly nasal vibrant clove and ginger taste, but they tend to miss a couple of things: one, they have lost their moistness and two there is no other way to substitute for the smell of the combination

of ginger, clove and molasses that Dorie's Princeton Gingersnaps create in the kitchen.  As she says in her recipe, these cookies are loaded with ginger – 2 tbsp. of finely chopped peeled fresh ginger (a trip of its own, to have the root in your hand to smell), 1 tbsp. of crystallized ginger (like a candy), and

then finally 1 tsp. of powdered ginger (the standard ingredient in less 'packed' cookies.) Where these three gingers meet at the crossroads of cinnamon, molasses, butter and vanilla, a very unique and alive flavor is formed; when cooked (undercooking is always the best way to ensure softness), and

out of the oven still hot, there seems to be enough sustenance in these cookies to swap six of them for dinner. The molasses does its great work days later by keeping the cookies soft and chewy; the crystallized and fresh ginger bits do their job maintaining the 'spring' in the flavor.