This week's Baked Sunday Mornings assignment is Joe Froggers, aka Ginger Rum Molasses Cookies. I had never bothered trying the recipe before now because I already have several great gingersnap recipes. The Joe Frogger recipe is slightly more complicated than other gingersnap recipes I've made because it requires an extended chilling time (3 hours, or overnight) and they are roll and cut cookies, not drop cookies. But still, it's one of the easier recipes from Baked Explorations!
To make the dough, you beat butter and shortening, add sugar and dark brown sugar, mix in molasses, and then alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda) and very hot water. Finally, you add in rum and then the chill the dough. The recipe calls for a lot of molasses and liquid in general (it has four cups of flour, but one and a quarter cups of molasses, one-third cup hot water, and three tablespoons dark rum). The resulting batter was the pourable consistency of cake batter, which I thought was odd. I figured it would firm up in the fridge and I chilled it for 24 hours.
The next day I tried to roll out the dough as directed, and it was simply impossible. The dough was too soft. I contemplated shaping it into a log and freezing it to make slice and bake cookies, but even shaping it into a log was going to be difficult. So I just got out a cookie scoop (I used a #50, a bit over a tablespoon), and I scooped the dough onto cookie sheets and sprinkled them with sanding sugar. Since the dough was so soft, I figured that it would flatten out during baking, which turned out to be right.
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My cookies actually looked almost exactly like the ones pictured in the cookbook even though I didn't roll and cut them; they were flat, even, and nicely round. The recipe says it yields between 36-48 cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutter, but I got 58 with my small scoop.
I thought these cookies were good, but I like some of my other gingersnap recipes better (like this one from Milk or this one from White Lily). I like my gingersnaps to be super chewy, and these were soft (but not pliable) and not particularly chewy. Also, to me the rum flavor was overwhelming, but I am particularly sensitive to rum, given that I never drink alcohol and I happen to think the taste of rum is absolutely awful (I will eat any flavor of ice cream but rum raisin!). These cookies are also quite molasses-y. That said, they were quite popular with tasters, and I would make them again.
Recipe: "Joe Froggers" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
To make the dough, you beat butter and shortening, add sugar and dark brown sugar, mix in molasses, and then alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda) and very hot water. Finally, you add in rum and then the chill the dough. The recipe calls for a lot of molasses and liquid in general (it has four cups of flour, but one and a quarter cups of molasses, one-third cup hot water, and three tablespoons dark rum). The resulting batter was the pourable consistency of cake batter, which I thought was odd. I figured it would firm up in the fridge and I chilled it for 24 hours.
The next day I tried to roll out the dough as directed, and it was simply impossible. The dough was too soft. I contemplated shaping it into a log and freezing it to make slice and bake cookies, but even shaping it into a log was going to be difficult. So I just got out a cookie scoop (I used a #50, a bit over a tablespoon), and I scooped the dough onto cookie sheets and sprinkled them with sanding sugar. Since the dough was so soft, I figured that it would flatten out during baking, which turned out to be right.
.JPG)
I thought these cookies were good, but I like some of my other gingersnap recipes better (like this one from Milk or this one from White Lily). I like my gingersnaps to be super chewy, and these were soft (but not pliable) and not particularly chewy. Also, to me the rum flavor was overwhelming, but I am particularly sensitive to rum, given that I never drink alcohol and I happen to think the taste of rum is absolutely awful (I will eat any flavor of ice cream but rum raisin!). These cookies are also quite molasses-y. That said, they were quite popular with tasters, and I would make them again.
Recipe: "Joe Froggers" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
- "This Cookie Can't Be Too Thin or Too Rich: Milk's Molasses Cookies," February 5, 2012.
- "Hello Gorgeous! [Molasses Crinkles]," September 25, 2008.
- "A Mid-Week Baking Binge [White Lily Gingersnaps]," August 14, 2008.
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