Gingersnap Cookie Disaster

Homemade cookies were always a favorite snack in our home. In addition to snacks after school, they were a welcome treat in our sack lunches. Whenever friends or family stopped by, Mom would start a pot of coffee (or two) and bring out tins of various cookies. By far the most popular were her chocolate chip cookies in a huge batch that had been doubled and then redoubled to a size appropriate to our family.

There was only one time that a batch of cookies was not completely devoured. As it happened I was the one (unfortunately) who made them. I was making gingersnaps, which are made with molasses, formed into a ball and then rolled into sugar before they are baked.

The delicious aroma of the baking cookies spread throughout the house and brought several eager young taste testers on the run. It wasn’t until the warm freshly baked cookies were sampled that we realized something was terribly wrong with them.

Apparently, my Mother had been cleaning out the kitchen cupboard that day. In order to wash the salt shaker, she had poured the remaining salt into a bowl. While she was out of the room, I spied the bowl of salt on the countertop and assumed she had left it for my cookies. I promptly set about rolling the cookies toward their doom.

As I said, that was the only cookie failure I can recall that someone would not eat, sooner or later. Even the dog wouldn't eat them.

Gingersnaps
1 Cup Sugar
¼ Cup Butter or Margarine
½ Cup Shortening
1 Egg
¼ Cup Molasses
2 Cups Flour
1 ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ teaspoon each Salt, Ginger & Allspice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream Shortening, Sugar and Molasses.
Add Egg and mix.
Add sifted dry ingredients all at once and mix well.
Roll into 1" balls, then roll in Sugar (not salt, ha ha)
Place on cookie sheet and Bake about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

NOTE: These cookies keep well in a sealed container.