There is a soft rain falling, not even really rain, just a cloud brought down to earth and even though I haven’t had breakfast yet I’m going to bake some cookies. Some spicy, gingery, these have to be made every year or there will be protests cookies
Tuba Christmas rehearsals have been going on at our house for the past few weeks (they are getting better, I can tell what songs they are playing now!). Tuba Christmas makes me think of gingersnaps- the cookies eagerly consumed after a long afternoon of standing out in the cold/rain/cold proving how much I really do love all the horn players in my life. No hot toddy today before breakfast but the cookies, I can justify the cookies.
Rough cut candied ginger |
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Coated in sugar and ready to bake. |
Pomegranate Ginger Snaps-
adapted from Sheila Lukin’s All Around The World cookbook
ingredients
- 12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar, plus extra for rolling
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 large, lightly beaten egg
- 2 T minced or sliced candied ginger (optional, for garnish)
instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Melt butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat, and mix in molasses. Let cool.
- Sift all dry ingredients together.
- Once the butter mixture has cooled enough so you don’t cook the egg, add the egg and mix.
- Combine the wet and dry mixtures and stir until thoroughly combined. Cover and refrigerate until firm- thirty minutes or so.
- Fill a shallow dish with sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it). Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, folding in a bit of candied ginger, if desired- then Roll in sugar and place 2 inches apart on un-greased baking sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes–until the bottoms of the cookies are just brown. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
Additional Notes:
I almost always cook half of the cookies longer than the recommended time. To day I sort of forgot I had left them in the oven so some cooked an extra 5 or six minutes. Whoops. Dark and crispy but still not burned- whew.
The pomegranate molasses adds a subtle tang both on the nose and the palette but isn’t recognizable, to me, as pomegranate. The original recipe calls for regular molasses and those are wonderful too, I just happen to have a languishing bottle of the tangy pomegranate molasses in the fridge.
As with most recipes that call for clove and nutmeg I almost always add a bit (1/4 tsp) of the garam masalla spice blend
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Pomegranate Molasses Ginger Snaps
Ingredients
- 12 T 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar plus extra for rolling
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 large lightly beaten egg
- 2 T minced or sliced candied ginger optional, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Melt butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat, and mix in molasses. Let cool.
- Sift all dry ingredients together.
- Once the butter mixture has cooled enough so you don't cook the egg, add the egg and mix.
- Combine the wet and dry mixtures and stir until thoroughly combined. Cover and refrigerate until firm- thirty minutes or so.
- Fill a shallow dish with sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it). Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, folding in a bit of candied ginger, if desired- then Roll in sugar and place 2 inches apart on un-greased baking sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes--until the bottoms of the cookies are just brown. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
I should send you Sally McCamant’s ginger snap recipe, which I almost always make at Christmas. Sally used to send them to Grandma Ginger. Cooking can be great therapy: something you can control and that has a certain meditative rhythm to it.
Bake on!
I would love that recipe. Sally, and Judy, have been on my mind this past week.