Brandy Snaps – 12 Days of Cookies
December 4, 2008 by Andrea 
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Filed under Dessert, Holidays
Day 4 of our 12 Days of Cookies extravaganza thing, and I wanted something gingery. I briefly considered the gingerbread men but then fell hard for the look of these brandy snaps from 1949. Mine didn’t quite turn out on my first try, but it won’t deter me from trying again because they are fun to make.
This is a cooked batter, and all the prep work is done on or just off the stove. You simply melt the butter, sugar, and molasses together, add the ginger and flour, mix well, and you’re ready to make cookies. I used wooden spoons and rolled two or three cookies around each, but you could also use thin wooden dowels.
My cookies aren’t all evenly sized, as you can tell from the xylophone below. Plus I found the recipe didn’t halve as easily as I thought; in fact, I would reduce the butter by a tablespoon or two or increase the flour if halving because my cookies felt greasy as I rolled them and they still have a bit of a shine, definitely not the intended texture. In the end I realized I used too much batter for each cookie as mine turned out thick rather than thin and didn’t have the intended snap, and I felt the molasses was a bit strong. Next time I would use part molasses/part golden syrup to lighten the flavor a bit and will use smaller amounts for each cookie. The recipe as written makes a lot of cookies, and my half recipe made about 30 using too much batter for each, so I would still halve the recipe or even cut it to 1/3 if I only needed 2 or 3 dozen.
Be sure to visit all our friends in the cookie clan to see what cookies they chose as well as the Gourmet website to see all their favorite cookies from 1941-2008.
The Rest of the Cookie Baking Clan
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Sandy of The Bakers Bench
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Jerry of Cooking By the Seat of My Pants
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
BRANDY SNAPS
Equipment
large sauce pan
baking sheet, buttered or lined with parchment
Ingredients
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks/339 g) unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups (263 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (240 mil) molasses
4 teaspoons powdered ginger
1-1/2 teaspoons lemon zest (optional, but I think it goes nicely)
3 cups (360 g) sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 300° F/150° C.
2. Over medium heat, melt the butter, sugar, and molasses together, stirring until the mixture is well-blended.
3. Stir in the ginger and lemon (optional) and remove the pan from the heat.
4. Slowly add the sifted flour, beating well after each addition.
5. Drop the batter from the tip of a teaspoon onto the buttered or lined baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes, or until nicely browned (my oven took longer). Use a thin spatula to gently transfer from the pan. Roll cookies around the end of a wooden spoon then allow them to cool for a few minutes. Store in a tin separate from other cookies to keep them crispy.
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Source: adapted from Gourmet
Well it was bound to happen! We made the same cookie on the same day. hahahaha. I love all the snaps around your spoon handles. I was so impatient with these I didn’t get that far & out went the first batch. As far as the shininess goes, I rolled them bumpy side out and that helped. I swear this recipe would make 100 of these, wouldn’t it? One of the most *interesting* recipes I’ve ever made. ARG.
Ah well – not every cookie can be the perfect cookie, I suppose. They are awfully pretty, though – I love the idea of rolling them around the dowels to get the tube shape. On to the next challenge!
I had planned to make this tonight. I will still do it even after reading both yours and Kellypeas! Funny how we all honed into this one.
The xylophone is so fun made with cookies Andrea! Really good job.
I made this one too today! Not my favorite, but good flavor. Yours look great! And wow do you have a lot of wooden spoons!
Kellypea, yes interesting is the word!
Claire, yes onward and upward (hopefully).
Courtney, you go girl!
MyKitchenInHalfCups, I felt a little whimsical when I photographed these.
Sandy, yes, when Michael and I got married we both had fully stocked kitchens. Some duplicates were donated, but no way were we getting rid of any wooden spoons.
Maybe they didn’t have the texture intended, but they look pretty enough
Are you cookied out yet? :-p
I made this one today. Cut the recipe in half, only used one stick of butter and substituted dark syrup for molasses. I only needed to cook for 10 minutes. They came out great and look fancy too. Thanks for the pictures, they are so useful for the novice baker (me)!