Yesterday’s moisting turned into today’s steady downpour—a good thing as I need to correct essays and grade quizzes.
In the woods, a muddy stream undulates through the woods, hanging a sharp left to pass under the fallen tree that provided deer shelter during the worst of the February snow. Elsewhere the ground gleams with a slightly oily shimmer. Whether the problem is run-off from the streets or leaching from contaminated substrate, it’s hard to tell. As I survey the swamp and fret about the implications of the mire for the survival of the old growth as well as the dozens of trees and shrubs we’ve recently planted, I hear bird pandemonium. It is hardly a chorus—nothing nearly that organized—more a clamor of trills, whistles and chirps, an avian lunchroom hullabaloo.
I came upstairs because of an irresistible urge to bake.
The thrum of rain, gray light and dank air, force me into the kitchen. The desire for spices and burning sugar is summoned by the aroma of leaf mold and clothing still damp from the dash to the mailbox.
“I need to bake something,” I announced to my Dear One. “I just don’t know what. Scones? Brownies? Something else”
“You still have cookie dough in the refrigerator,” he answered.
Ohmigawd, so I do. Ginger cookie dough, the remains of the batch I made at Christmas time. This is… that was at least two and a half months ago. I opened the refrigerator door and peered in.
“On the top shelf. In the back.”
I shifted the jar of homemade dill pickles and found the plastic container I had left there so long ago. I pulled off the lid and opened the plastic wrap. No fuzzy green growth. I sniffed cautiously. Nothing but molasses and ginger. Fantastic!
I come from a family of ginger addicts. Our preferred soft drink was Canada Dry ginger ale. A favorite dessert was gingerbread. The best cookies in the world? Nannie’s ginger cookies.
Nannie’s ginger cookies are wafer thin, crisp around the edges but slightly chewy in the center. They are sweet but not sugary, rich but not buttery, earthy with molasses and pungent with ginger. The cookies are easily shattered and Nannie layered them gently into the dark brown pottery cookie jar that sat to the right of the window above the long counter that ran from back door to kitchen sink.
I loved that kitchen. The main area was a crossroads where access to telephone, table, refrigerator, cellar stairs, back stairs and doors to the front and back yards converged.
An eating nook looked out under the massive branches of an ancient pine toward the back yard. A galley of a butler’s pantry connected the dining room to the kitchen; on the other side of the pantry wall, connected by a window, was the cooking area of the kitchen. From here a secret door led to the study. A door camouflaged as a bookshelf in the study made stealing cookies easier, not, of course, that anyone ever sneaked anything past Nannie. At 161 Main Street, successful larceny was larceny Nannie allowed.
I still think of the house, a colonial revival built in the 1930s in Hingham, Massachusetts, as the most nearly perfect house I have ever seen. The house is essentially a shoebox. A large entrance hall anchors the center. The living room is off to the right and dining room, kitchen and study to the left with an attached two-car garage beyond. Bedrooms are upstairs and a separate apartment occupies the space over the garage.
Stairs led down from both the kitchen and the entrance hall. At the kitchen end of the basement was the laundry room and storage area. The furnace and utilities occupied space in the middle next to Pop’s woodworking shop. The other end was devoted to amusements: ping-pong, billiards and television. Best of all, French doors and windows led straight from the recreational end of the basement to the garden. Work spaces were dark and functional; play spaces gleamed with light, and trees and grass and flowers seduced us into the fresh air.
I extracted the melon-baller from the utensils drawer, scooped marbles of dough onto a cookie sheet and set the sheet in the oven. Water went on to boil; I warmed the teapot and measured Yunnan tea leaves into the strainer. I meditated more on the brown rivulet heading toward the brook that one way or another eventually empties into the Chesapeake Bay. I waited.
My Dear One received two cookies with his cup of tea. He is not a ginger aficionado. I got the rest.
Nannie’s (Iva Preston’s) Ginger Molasses Cookies
Yield: 2+ dozen
Lifespan of dough in refrigerator: unknown but at least three months
- Ingredients
1 cup / 2 sticks of sweet butter cut into pieces
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup dark molasses, preferably unsulphured
3 teaspoons of ginger, or more if you want
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, preferably unbleached
In a medium or large saucepan, bring molasses to a boil, stirring more or less constantly. Do not let it burn.
Add sugar and butter to the boiling molasses and stir until butter is melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and let cool a bit.
Sift dry ingredients together into a large mixing bowl. Pour molasses mixture into flour mixture and stir until completely combined. Doing this in a large standing mixer with the paddle attachment is by far and away easier than doing this by hand.
Cool the dough in the refrigerator until it is cold and stiff.
Nannie said to roll the dough into sticks about 1 – 1 ½ inches in diameter, wrap in wax paper and chill or freeze overnight. Slice in thin rounds to bake on an ungreased cookie sheet.
I think that’s a hassle. I use the small end of the melon-baller to create marble-sized dough balls and space them widely on the ungreased cookie sheet. This is way easier. Left-over dough should be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in an airtight container in the fridge, or wrapped and frozen. Frozen dough has an even longer shelf life.
- Baking
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cook first batch for 15 minutes—12 minutes if you think your oven runs even a little hot. Best to check after 12 minutes and see if the cookies are done. Don’t let the edges get too dark.
Successive batches cook faster because, if you are like me, you are putting the cookie marbles on warm cookie sheets.
Check the level of done-ness at 10-12 minutes for the second batch; 1-10 minutes for the third batch.
Enjoy.
I think these cookies are particularly delicious with a scoop of peppermint-stick ice cream and/or a glass of bubbly. I prefer the yeasty notes of a very dry French champagne; there is also something to be said for the fruitier sweetness of a prosecco from Italy’s Veneto or a cava from Spain.