grandmas old fashioned gingersnap cookies

If you can get past eating the cookie dough of Grandma’s Ginger Snap Cookie recipe and actually get them baked (hee! hee!) you will be delighted at the scrumptiousness of these heirloom cookies! This treasured family recipe has been passed down from my hubby’s Danish Grandmother. She would bake them up for us and send them home in a well worn, tartan plaid cookie tin with a lovingly inscribed note attached.
great grandma winans This adorable antique little girl in the oval frame is my hubby’s Grandmother. Her maiden name was, little Miss Naomi Agatha Madsen. What a dreamy picture of pure sweetness!  Born just after the Turn Of The Century, she grew up to be the prayer warrior of the family. She fell asleep every night with an open Bible and prayers for her children and grandchildren fresh on her lips. What a legacy and a priceless gift to blanket loved ones with warm prayers of goodness, mercy and grace. Oh, that we would do the same, with fervency! If we don’t pray for our loved ones, who will?
“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” James 5:16B
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Well, my hubby’s grandma, also endearingly known as “NoNo” by her friends, was the baker of many delectable, made-from-scratch, sweet and golden confections. She learned to bake from her Danish Mama Lona Outzen Madsen. Mama Lona was a farmer’s wife until her husband passed away at which time she turned her home into a boarding house to make ends meet in the prairies of Sidney, Montana in the early 1900’s. Nono was greatly needed in the kitchen to help prepare hearty meals and delicious desserts for their boarders.
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One of  Grandma’s signature cookies, the one she is famous for in our family, is her spicy and sugared Old Fashioned Gingersnap Cookies. A must-have on our holiday table. I would like to honor her this season by sharing this treasured heirloom recipe  (which, I might add, she would be thrilled and humbled that you would want it.). These lip-smacking cookies with a crispy edge and chewy center will no doubt comfort, cheer and delight your soul!
grandma3
Here is Grandma with her hot cup of coffee and a smile. This is her handwritten recipe that I cherish. You’ll see that it calls for Oleo which is Margarine. Margarine is made up of heavily processed vegetable oils and became popular in the 1930’s and 1940’s during the depression and World War 2 because of it’s cheaper price and a scarcity of butter, unless you lived on a farm with a milk cow. I’m sure the older original recipe called for butter because way back in the day most folks churned their own butter or bought it from neighbors who did. So I’ve replaced the Oleo with butter to reflect the original version of this yummy recipe.

grandmas old fashioned gingersnap cookies

 

Grandma’s Old Fashioned Ginger Snap Cookies

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks) – softened, NOT melted
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
Mix together above ingredients until well blended, then add:
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground ginger
Beat all ingredients well (I use my Kitchenaid mixer, but you can mix by hand too). Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator or freezer at least an hour (for best results the dough needs to be COLD!!). Then roll into small balls (large marble size). Dip balls into a bowl of white sugar, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven (you want the cookies to be crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.)
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Just wait until the buttery-spice aroma of these cookies meander it’s way through each room of your home, it’s so heavenly…you’ll wonder if Angels may have fluttered by.
Enjoy!

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