Day 12 - Gingersnaps

I have been making gingersnaps for a long time but this year, I wanted to change it up a little so I started looking around for variations to the traditional recipe and found one that had caramel inside the gingersnap.  I thought that sounded interesting so kept reading.  The caramel used for the recipe was done in 6 minutes in the microwave.  I thought I had to try it because I was skeptical that it would work.  I have made many caramels over the years and they are typically very labor intensive and tricky to get right.  Well I was not able to get the microwave version to work.  The caramel did not get hard enough to form into a ball.  Fortunately, I had some Kraft caramels left over from Twix cookie project so decided to see if putting a caramel in the middle improved the cookie.  I cut the caramel square in half and then pushed it into my gingersnap balls covering the caramel with dough.  The result was good but I am not sure if it significantly improved the original.  I will let my Christmas guests decide as I did half with caramel and half without.  The recipe for the gingersnaps comes from the Inn at Little Washington and was in Bon Appetit magazine years ago to use the cookie crumbs for the crust for the Inn's marble cheesecake.  The gingersnaps did made a great crust but they were even better as a cookie.  Simple, classic flavors with a chewy consistency.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup light molasses
1 egg, beaten to blend
 1/3 cup sugar (to roll balls in -- or use Christmas colored sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift the first 6 ingredients into a bowl.  Using electric mixer, cream butter with 1 cup sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy.  Mix in molasses and egg.  Add sifted dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Cover and refrigerate dough at least 1 hour (Can be prepared 1 day ahead).

Form dough into round balls.  Roll balls in the 1/3 cup sugar (or Christmas colored sugar). Arrange balls in ungreased cookie sheets spacing 2 inches apart.  Bake until cookies are brown on bottom, about 12 minutes.  Transfer to rack and cool completely. Place in air tight container and freeze.