Snappy, crispy icebox gingersnap cookies
Texture has so much to do with the appeal of a cookie – whether you’re going for crispy, chewy or melt-in-your-mouth, The Globe’s food columnist Julie Van Rosendaal will guide you to that perfect texture with a Cookie of the Week recipe throughout December. Coming up: crumbly, buttery shortbread.
‘Tis the season for those who adore crunchy, snappy cookies – the kinds you roll and cut, such as sugar cookies and gingerbread, tend to be more popular at this time of year.
Cookies with a crunchier texture are made with doughs sweetened with granulated sugar instead of brown sugar and are lower in moisture, so they hold their shape and don’t spread out as much as softer drop cookie doughs do. Doughs that have been rolled out or sliced have an even thickness going into the oven, which produces crunchy, snappy cookies. A small proportion of wet ingredients such as molasses and egg gives them a sturdier texture than tender, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread, which is a simple ratio of butter-sugar-flour and very little moisture to develop the gluten.
Though I tend to gravitate toward chewy cookies with a crisp edge, I’m a fan of the crunchy-snappy rolled or sliced cookie for a few reasons: Besides their deliciousness, rolled cookie doughs are similar in structure to icebox cookie doughs, which means any dough designed for rolling can be shaped into a log and refrigerated or frozen, then sliced to bake.
Having a stash of cookie dough in your fridge is a wonderful thing – if you have a few different kinds, you can slice a few off each and bake them on one sheet for an assortment in one batch. And if you don’t happen to need a few dozen cookies at once, you can slice and bake a few at a time in your toaster oven or air fryer (really just a tiny convection oven) as you need them. Cookies are always best freshly baked, and baking them also makes your house smell wonderful – there is no better potpourri.
Also: Icebox cookie recipes tend to produce enough dough to save for months in your freezer, or to share. My favourite contribution to a cookie swap is a log of dough, wrapped in festive paper or parchment, because when people’s stash of baked cookies run out, it’s nice to be able to bake some fresh.
And on the subject of swaps and cookie storage, remember to store your soft-chewy and crisp-crunchy cookies separately – if you package them together, the drier cookies will absorb moisture from the more moist cookies, making them softer while drying the chewy cookies out.
Icebox Gingersnaps with Ginger Drizzle
The drizzle is optional, but a simple way to fancy them up – dry ginger adds a pepperiness that’s very different, flavour-wise, than fresh ginger. Alternatively, you could make a quick eggnog drizzle with 1 cup icing sugar and 2-4 tbsp (depending on the thickness of your liquid) eggnog, or even orange juice.
