Saturday, August 22, 2009

[Cookie 035] Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches

Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches

Greetings, earthlings. How's life? Eat anything particularly delicious lately? I hope your making the most of your end of the summer and grabbing up every last stone fruit and veggie from the farmers' markets (and perhaps, your own garden?). I definitely have, and aside from just eating them straight, I've been trying to incorporate as much fresh fruits into the cookies I make as humanly possible.

Grape Jam, Homemade
Grapes

Take, for example, these Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwich cookies. I did a little tweaking to the recipe and used some homemade jam that my mom made from the grapes that we have growing on our fence in our yard. I love using 100% homemade/homegrown ingredients--when it's possible of course--but let me just say, making jam isn't easy for me. I tried to make the jam the first time around, and everything was going swell, but as soon as I turned my back on the simmering jelly to find a perfectly adorable little Mason jar, I burnt the sugar! It all caramelized and ended up turning into an inedible hard candy. Boo. My mom tried again, and succeeded at not burning the jam, but her homemade pectin didn't solidify the mixture of grapes and sugar, so she had to add some store-bought pectin. It was hard for us, but at least we got to use up our excess of baby grapes that we get every summer!


Our GrapesGingersnaps

Anyways, back to the cookie. I've been meaning to make a sandwich cookie for a while, so I thought that with our newly made jam this recipe would be perfect. The cookies baked up absolutely perfectly and beautifully, holding their shape and forming perfect circles. I think the reason for this is that the recipe calls for vegetable shortening, which has less water than butter and therefore causes the dough to spread less while baking.

Ginger for Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches
Ingredients for Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches

So the gingersnap is perfect. Spot on. Chewy, gingery, perfectly shaped and lovely all around. However, I baked them a little too large, and thus when I spread them with jam and sandwiched them together, the resultant cookie was massive. Plus, my jam was a little too wet and made the cookie sandwich so messy that you could barely eat it without making it look like you had just murdered something on your plate (anyone see that True Blood episode where they eat that souffle made out of a human heart? haha, sorry...). And don't even think of eating this without a plate, because if you do, you might as well just start an ant farm in your lap to begin with. Be careful, eaters, this is a messy business.

Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches, Assembly
Grape Jam

In the end, we ended up eating the cookies plain, without jam, a lot of the time. One recommendation I would give would be to dip them in some coffee--it's completely divine. Or, if you want to make a fancy little dessert for a dinner party or something, you could put 1 or 2 on a plate with some homemade whipped cream and some berry compote or something. Maybe some poached pears or nectarines? Oh, roasted peaches with some honey drizzled on top? Okay, I'm going to get carried away if I continue.

Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches

So yeah, these are tasty, without question. A little hard to eat, but the cookie itself is another example of how Martha can really nail the classic recipes. Now that the cookies are all gone however, I have a lot of leftover jam...any suggestions?

Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches, Mess

Gingersnap-Raspberry Sandwiches

Ingredients
  • 8 tablespoons tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1 cup raspberry jam with seeds
Directions
  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees with one rack positioned in center of oven; line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and set aside.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter, shortening, and 1 cup sugar on medium speed. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and ginger.
  3. Add maple syrup to butter mixture; beat to combine. Beat in egg until well combined. Reduce mixer speed to low; slowly add the reserved flour mixture, a little at a time, until well blended.
  4. Place remaining cup sugar in a bowl. Measure 2 teaspoons dough; roll into a ball. Roll dough in sugar; transfer to sheet. Repeat, spacing balls 3 inches apart. Bake until golden, about 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Form and bake the remaining dough.
  5. Spread about 2 teaspoons jam over half of the cookies; place a second cookie on top of jam-covered ones, making sandwiches. Serve.
****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 2.5/5
Tastiness: 4/5 (Tastes like what you expect them to)
Attractiveness: 4/5 (Even the messiness looks great)
Is it worth it?: Yeah! You can really take the basic gingersnap recipe and do crazy stuff with it, too. Dip them in chocolate? Add fresh fruits? Ice cream sandwiches! You get the idea...

{Pairings}
Drink: Coffee! Dip it in your cup--it's so seriously good!
Song: For the Dishwasher -- Grandaddy
Activity: Washing your hands, which will be uber-sticky with jelly, trust me.

16 comments:

Anne said...

looks delicious - as usual. Why are the gingersnaps so light though? Oh, stop your reply, I just looked at the recipe and it doesn't call for molasses. Innnnteresting, I'm curious to try the gingersnap part. Not that the homemade jam doesn't sound divine, it's only that I JUST ran out of homemade pectin and a garden full of beautiful fruit so it's a no go. Next time.

Jennifer said...

What a lovely, messy idea!!!

jessica said...

This looks delicious!

dragonfly pie said...

Oh boy, these look good. I have some homemade strawberry jam in the fridge which might make a fine substitution for these beauties.

Kim said...

This cookie sounds delightful! LOL - I watch True Blood every Sunday and I did see that episode. It was pretty intense. This is a beautiful and tasty looking sandwich cookie.

Flike said...

Okay okay okay.....
wait.

I have a request to make. I think the title of this cookie should be called Murder She Ate. Like Murder She Wrote. GET IT!? Do you get it? Get it?

Flike said...

also, the photos of this post are quiiiiiiiiite good

Patricia Scarpin said...

I love how crackled the cookies look - so pretty! I love sandwich cookies and these are right up my alley.
You can send the jam my way. :D

Lizzie said...

Anne- make the gingersnaps. they are so good. i miss you.

jennifer- thanks--it's true!

jessica- thank you!

dragonfly- that sounds awesome. strawberry and ginger are so delicious together.

kim- thanks! and i'm glad to know there's another true blood fan out there reading this entry!

claire- it would work even better if i put poison in the cookie, right?

patricia- thanks! surprisingly enough, we're slowly working our way through the surplus of jam we have simply by spreading it on toast and the like!

Xiaolu said...

Haha I'm not usually even squeamish and that True Blood ep had me looking away. Still love the show though. I just made chewy ginger cookies too!

Talita said...

Absolutely fabulous!!! Looks really yummy!! You had baked gorgeous cookies!!

Anonymous said...

you need to update this blog more and faster. faster faster faster. more fucking cookies, you hear me

Foodiewife said...

Like you, I try to use fresh and organic ingredients whenever possible. Somehow, I think eating sugar/desserts cancels the organic aspect of things, but what the heck?
I did find a vegetable shortening at Whole Foods that seems a little better, ingredient wise, than Crisco. These cookies are gorgeous, my friend. I made raspberry jam a few weeks ago, so I'm queuing this recipe up from my MS Cookies cookbook very soon.
I'm also thinking of figuring out/learning how to make palmiers with raspberry jam in the middle. a local bakery does that, so we shall see how I do.
Lovin' this blog, since I'm a Cookie Monster.

Lizzie said...

xiaolu- i'm not that squeamish either, but that was seriously too much! but i'm so hardcore addicted to that show too...

talita- thank you!

claire- shut it.

a feast for the eyes- the way i see it, i'm going to eat dessert and cookies whether i bake them myself or not. so i'd rather never ever ever buy another box of trans-fat laden, high fructose corn syrup packed box of oreos, and instead buy the butter and flour to make them myself! or buy from a bakery, so i can support small businesses. and yes, i've been eyeing those gingersnap palmiers in The Book for a while and can't wait to make them this winter!

Unknown said...

These look amazing. Cant wait to try. What kind of camera do you use? Your photos are beautiful! Love your blog!!

Anonymous said...

I tried these and they are so tasty. I used store bought jam (not as ambitious as some of you folks who have posted). I found that I only needed 1/2 cup of sugar to roll the cookie dough in and instead of measuring two teaspoons for each cookie (must measure to keep the size consistent so you can make sandwiches with equal sized cookies) it was easier to measure a very scant tablespoon since 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon. Thank you for this blog. I am a cookie freak and am going to start following you in your journey.