Gingersnaps

A favorite in this house are my homemade sugar cookies. Gingersnaps, on the other hand, I have NEVER made. I guess that's because the only times I have ever eaten them in the past, they tasted like they had way too much ginger.  I decided to make my gingersnap cookies with just a "hint" of ginger. After a look through a bunch of my cookbooks and on-line, I found there was a wide variance of how much ginger was used in gingersnaps - anywhere from two teaspoons to THREE tablespoons!!!! Yikes. I got a kick out of the hubby this morning. Since I had never made gingersnaps before, I wasn't sure how long they would take to bake. When I told him I had set the timer for 12 minutes, and he heard it buzz, he said, "they're done!"  I told him, "just because the timer went off, it doesn't mean they're done."  He said, "it doesn't?!?!" I remarked to him, "you may be the "king" of the grill, but I'm the "queen" of baking!!! I found out Dominic was a big fan of these cookies when I went into the other room for a few minutes shortly after they cooled off enough to "sample."  The cookie I had taken a few bites of that was sitting on the kitchen table was gone (just a handful of crumbs remained), plus another four were missing from the wire cooling rack. After lunch, he was telling me he wanted more gingersnaps. I had to tell him, "I think you've had enough!!  

Ingredients

2 cups white flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup white sugar + 1/4 cup white sugar

7 tablespoons margarine, softened

1/4 cup light brown sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, put the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In large bowl, put the 3/4 of a cup of white sugar, margarine, brown sugar, honey, vanilla extract and egg. Beat by hand with large spoon until well combined. Add the flour mixture and stir well. Roll dough into two dozen equal sized balls. On a small plate, put the remaining 1/4 cup white sugar. Roll each ball in the white sugar until totally covered and place a dozen balls at a time onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 14 minutes or until the cookies start turning a golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for five minutes. Transfer to wire rack.  Makes two dozen cookies.