Favourite Ginger Snaps

These are old-fashioned ginger snaps, the kind that snap audibly when you break them in half. The molasses-and-brown-sugar base gives them that signature dark mahogany color and rich, slightly bitter sweetness, while the ginger and cinnamon hit you right at the front of the bite.

The trick is the two teaspoons of baking soda. That much soda creates an aggressively alkaline dough, which reacts with the acidic molasses to produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide. The cookies puff dramatically in the oven, then collapse as they cool, creating that signature crackled, fissured top that defines a proper ginger snap.

Form into 1-inch balls and flatten slightly before baking. Don’t crowd them; ginger snaps spread significantly. Eight to ten minutes at 375°F (190°C) gives you the snap; longer makes them shatter, shorter leaves them soft in the middle.

Pro Tips

• Use unsulphured molasses (Grandma’s brand or similar). Blackstrap is too bitter for cookies; sulphured tastes off.
• Roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before flattening for an extra-sparkly, slightly crunchy crust.
• Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes before transferring; warm cookies tear easily.
• For chewier cookies, bake just 8 minutes; for true snaps, go the full 10.

Variations

• Add ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves and ¼ teaspoon of allspice for a more complex, gingerbread-style spice profile.
• Stir in 2 tablespoons of finely chopped crystallized ginger for chewy ginger pockets.
• Sandwich two cookies with vanilla ice cream for ginger snap ice cream sandwiches.