ginger cookies.

I adore Ina Garten - her show, her kitchen, her explanation of techniques, her recipes, her general love of food. She is my favorite stop for cookbook pleasure-reading as well as the one I turn to for recipes that will inevitably turn out well. So when a fabulous foodie friend made her own gingersnap recipe for my birthday celebration last month, I was inspired to try the recipe below. These are different from gingersnaps because they're chewy, and they're also full of crystallized ginger for an intense flavor. As Ina herself loves to say, how bad could that be?

Ultimate Ginger Cookie
from Barefoot Contessa at Home

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves (*I used 3/4 tsp., which was sufficiently clove-y)
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1 c. dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1/3 c. unsulfured molasses
1 egg, room temp.
1 1/4 c. chopped crystallized ginger (6 oz.) (*Coarse or fine pieces both work; your choice)
Small bowl of granulated sugar (for coating the cookies)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and salt; combine well.

3. In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the brown sugar, oil, and molasses on medium speed for 5 minutes. (*You could probably make this with a handheld mixer, but it's a very wet, heavy dough that even makes my beloved KitchenAid mixer work hard.) Turn mixer to low speed, add egg, and beat for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl, beat 1 more minute.

4. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients, then mix at medium speed for 2 minutes. (*It might seem like the dough will be too dry - not to worry. Once the dry ingredients are mixed in thoroughly, the dough will hold together beautifully.) Add the crystallized ginger and mix until combined. (*As you can see here, the dough isn't all that pretty. But it will be delicious.)


5. Scoop out the dough and roll with your hands into a ball. (*Ina says a 1 3/4-in. ball. Mine looked about the size of overgrown golf balls, if that helps.) Flatten lightly into a disc with your fingers, then press both sides of the cookie in the bowl of granulated sugar before placing it on the sheet pan. (*These cookies don't spread very much, but because they don't make that many, you don't need to crowd them. I fit between 9 and 12 per sheet.)

6. Bake exactly 13 minutes. (*I rotate the pans halfway through for even browning.) They'll be just a bit crackled on top and browned on the bottom; they might feel too soft, but they'll harden as they cool. Cool on the sheets for a minute or two, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.


[Makes 16 cookies according to Ina, though I've managed 22 with 1 batch and 18 with another. 18 seems to work well; many more and I think you lose the wonderful chewiness of the larger cookie.]

preface.

Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then rising up, said to Elizabeth,

"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company."

"Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and shew her ladyship about the different walks."
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Last fall, a dear friend was reading Pride and Prejudice; she remarked that Lady Catherine's phrase would make the perfect title for a blog. Not only was I TAing for a Jane Austen course at the time, but P&P is also a novel that I re-read over and over again, basking in its diction, chuckling at its snarkiness. So I laughed, agreed, and filed the idea away, not entirely intending to follow through on it. But it gradually, unexpectedly, snuck up on me and became something I was excited about. Became, well, this.

"A prettyish kind of a little wilderness" - it seems such an apt title for a blog. (Thanks again, B., for the phrase. And thanks too to M. for the set-up help.) For in Austen's context of eighteenth-century landscaping, "wilderness" means not an uninhabited desolate space but a section of garden carefully designed to look wild. (Closely-set trees, intricate mazes, perhaps a faux-ruin. You get the picture.) In a way, this blog will, I hope, become its own kind of wilderness: a hodgepodge of recipes, photos, miscellaneous snippets planted (er, posted) carefully, one at a time, eventually to form a pleasing space.

So thanks for taking a turn.