Through the miracle of the internet, I have become friends with Jude, from Louisiana. He raises Longhorn cattle just like ours here at the ranch, and is an avid nature lover. In his spare time, he also keeps bees, and removes bee and wasp hives from neighboring farms, homes and ranches. His videos of bee and wasp removal are scary, but I like his philosophy of not destroying the hives if he doesn’t have to.
Jude and I have traded our local products…he sent me some of his amazing Louisiana honey, and I sent him a small pile of chile piquin from my yard. From what he tells me, they chile plants are thriving. I can’t say the same for his honey. We clobbered it hard. Absolutely delicious!
He requested that I post a recipe for gingerbread, so here it is. This is an adaptation of my regular gingerbread recipe that I use for making gingerbread men and gingerbread houses. But for Jude, I wanted to send him a recipe that used his good Louisiana honey. This gingerbread is crispy and spicy, and will still work beautifully for any gingerbread project you have in mind. You will have to wait to see what I create with it.
Some recipes for gingerbread call for chilling the dough, which you can do. But I find room temperature gingerbread dough rolls out thin, which is what you want for crispy cookies. So I usually mix it up, roll it out, and cut it up. No resting period, and no chilling.
Also, if you don’t feel like rolling them out, you can always use a cookie press. The ginger snaps are just as pretty and tasty, but with a bit less mess.
This recipe also calls for fresh ginger, which you can grate yourself using the finer holes on a cheese grater. For a spicier gingerbread, add twice as much frehs ginger. Dried ginger is fine too, but it never seems to get as spicy as fresh.
Merry Christmas, Jude! Enjoy the cookies. Keep sending me photos of your chile plants in 2019!
Frosted Honey Ginger Snaps
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 12 min
- Total Time: 27 minutes
- Yield: 4 dozen cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Continental
Ingredients
Ginger Snaps:
1 stick butter, softened (115 gr)
½ cup honey (120ml)
¼ cup molasses (60 ml)
½ cup granulated sugar (62 gr)
1 egg
3½ – 4½ cups all-purpose flour (437 gr)
¼ tsp salt (1 gr)
1½ tsp. grated fresh ginger (or equal amount of ground dry ginger-2gr)
1 tsp. ground cloves (2gr)
Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar (62 gr)
1/4 tsp. merengue powder (1 gr)
2 tsp. tap water (10 ml)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). Combine butter, honey, molasses, and sugar in the bowl of a mixer. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg, 1 cup of the flour, the ginger and cloves, and beat briefly until well combined. Add another cup of flour, and beat. Add the flour a cup at a time until you have added a total of 3 1/2 cups of flour (412 gr) and mix until well combined. Do no over beat, total mixing time shouldn’t be more than 3 minutes.
Remove the dough from the mixer, and hand knead the remaining 1 cup of flour (125gr) into the dough, until the dough is no longer sticky, about 3 minutes. Coat a rolling pin with extra flour, and liberally flour your rolling surface also. Roll out to 3/16″ thickness (1 cm). Cut to desired shape, place on a baking sheet lined with parchement paper. Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Cool completely.
Once the ginger snaps are cool, prepare the glaze. Stir together the glaze ingredients, adding a few more drops of water to adjust the thickness of the glaze for drizzling.
Using a spoon, drizzle the glaze over the top in a thin stream, and allow the glaze to dry until hardened.
Notes
Chlling the dough will result in thicker cookies. I prefer to leave the dough at room temperature so that it rolls out thin and even. Use enough flour so that the dough does not stick to your rolling surface.
Cant wait to try them, I will definitely make some for the holidays, jude
Enjoy! I’ve been making them all day. really good!
Do you have a recipe for authentic pumpkin or Mexican empanadas
Hi, I will be working on one this week, I will send when I am finished! more soon
Hey Arturo, here is a recipe for pumpkin empanadas. Also check out a very different empanada crust recipe that is already on the blog. here is the link. Enjoy!
https://kitchenwrangle.wpengine.com/2017/04/empanadas-de-camote/
Pumpkin Empanandas
4 cups all-purpose flour (500 g)
1 tsp. baking powder (4g)
½ tsp. salt (2g)
3 tbsp. sugar (38g)
6 tbsp. butter, chilled (90g)
3 eggs
1 cup water (240ml)
Filling:
15oz. can pumpkin (425g – use equal amount of fresh pumpkin puree, if available)
½ cup sugar, or to taste (100g)
1 egg
1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice (2g)
Egg wash:
1 beaten egg beaten with 1 tbsp. water (15ml)
In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour along with the baking powder, salt, and sugar. Pulse once or twice to combine well. Cut the butter into slices, add to the bowl, pulsing until the mixture makes a course meal. Add the eggs one at a time, pulsing to combine well.
Turn the food processor on and add the water through the feed hole. Once the dough gathers into a ball, turn off the food processor. Remove the dough and knead by hand on a floured surface until it is no longer sticky. Divide the dough into 12-14 equal size balls. Knead each piece lightly to coat with flour. Shape each equally sized piece into a flat patty. Place the pieces in a bowl, and store in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
To make the filling, add the pumpkin to a mixing bowl, and stir in the sugar, egg and pumpkin pie spice.
To make the empanadas, roll each of the chilled dough patties into circles on a floured surface. Roll the circles to approximately 8” (20cm) in diameter. Add a large spoonful of the filling to the center of the circle. Fold the dough over the top to make a half-moon shape and seal the edges with a fork. Crimp the edges decoratively, if desired.
Heat your oven to 375°F (190°C) while you continue to shape all of the empanadas. Place the formed empanadas on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush each of the empanadas with the egg wash.
Bake the empanadas for 25-30 minutes until they are golden brown. Remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.
Makes 12-14 empanadas