Crispy Gingersnaps | Ginger Snap Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes a cookie crispy? ›

How to Make Crispy Cookies. While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.

Let's review a few reasons why you're cooked may not have crackled on top: You put the cookies in the oven before preheating. A hot preheated oven is important for getting a crackle top on your cookies. You didn't whip the butter and sugar long enough.

If you use too much butter, the cookies will end up flat and greasy. And if you use too little flour, the amount of butter and sugar will be proportionally too high, meaning the cookies will spread for the aforementioned reasons.

Bake for longer.

This is a pretty simple one, but to get that lovely crunchy gingersnap cookie, I increased the bake time slightly. If you want them even more crunchy, bake them for a little longer!

To make cookies crispy, add less liquid or bake it in the oven for longer to dry out the dough. Generally bake around 13-15min at 180C for a crispy cookie. But if you want a thoroughly crispy cookie – not those just charred on the outside – decrease the temperature to 140C and bake for 30min.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

Instead of simply placing a smooth ball of cookie dough on your baking sheet, use your hands to split the ball in half, and then gently squeeze it together. You'll want the split side facing up when the cookies go into the oven.

A heavy amount of baking soda interacts with the molasses in this recipe to encourage spread. This allows cracks in the dough to develop where moisture escapes, creating that beautiful crackled appearance and crunchy texture. Ensure your baking soda is fresh and active – learn more about that here.

Why are my crinkle cookies not crinkling? If the dough is too wet, then it will dissolve the sugar and the crinkle will get lost. In order for a defined crinkle to form, the surface of the dough needs to be dry. If your cookies are not crinkling then there is too much free water in the dough.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

How do you know when ginger cookies are done? ›

Q: Why are my cookies so puffy and cakey? Whipping too much air into the dough. That fluffy texture you want in a cake results from beating a lot of air into the room temperature butter and sugar, and it does the same for cookies. So don't overdo it when you're creaming together the butter and sugar.

While we found that multiple factors can affect how quickly the top dries out and thus how many cracks are formed (including the temperature of the dough and how rapidly it spreads in the oven), a simple tweak turned out to be key to producing a maximum number of fissures: rolling the balls of dough in granulated sugar ...

“There are some gingerbread recipes that are hard right after baking and need to sit for a few days to soften. Molasses and honey hardens gingerbread, but as the sugar absorbs moisture, it will get softer.”

Ginger Snaps are simply a variation of the traditional Gingerbread cookie. They're known for their crisper quality; their “snap” if you will.

Fat is a very important ingredient in cookies – it tenderizes, crisps and browns, adds color and a wonderful flavor that is impossible to duplicate. Butter, our fat of choice, ensures good baking results and adds the most desirable taste, texture and appearance.

Brown sugar also contains molasses which adds moisture and, because it's slightly acidic, works with the baking soda to give the cookies a rise and a cakier end result. Using only white sugar will result in a flatter and crisp cookie.

Not Enough Flour

If your cookies are flat, brown, crispy, and possibly even a bit lacy around the edges, that means you need to add flour to your dough for the next batch.

Baking soda is also present in baking powder, but in a smaller amount, so it has a lower pH level which results in less browning. Baking soda in cookies leads to more spread and a crispy edge compared to baking powder, as shown in the photos below.