100% Whole Wheat Gingersnaps

This recipe is the third, and I believe final, gingersnap recipe in this cookbook. Not that I'm complaining--I love ginger recipes, and they're especially appropriate at this time of year. I still think the chocolate gingersnaps are my favorite, but these are up there, too.


These are Maida's whole wheat gingersnaps, and they have a LOT of grated fresh ginger as well as some cinnamon and clove. The sugar is brown and the flour is all whole wheat, so these have a hearty, "dark" taste. But there's enough butter to make them nice and sandy.
Another thing I like about this recipe is that it takes about 5 minutes to make the dough--you don't even need to remember to get the butter out of the fridge. Just get out the food processor and start whizzing away!
I didn't get a lot of reaction on these cookies--I think because I served them with the chocolate cheesecake brownies and some other more spectacularly rich cookies (recipes to come). Like the cranberry grunt, this is rather an ugly duckling recipe. But it's a homey, comforting one worth trying--I think.

Here's the recipe:
100 Percent Whole Wheat Gingersnaps

2-1/2 oz. (this is a bigger piece than you'd think) fresh ginger--no need to peel
4 oz. (1 stick) butter
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves
1 t. cinnamon
2 egg yolks
1 scant cup (6.5 oz.) brown sugar
2 cups (10 oz.) sifted whole wheat flour--I used whole wheat pastry flour, but this recipe was probably written for coarser flour.

Get out your food processor. Cut the ginger into thinnish slices and, with the processor running, drop the pieces a few at a time through the feed tube. When the ginger is finely minced, stop the machine. Cut the butter into about 12 pieces and do the same thing with it that you did with the ginger, processing until the butter is soft. Now add the vanilla, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and egg yolks, and process just until everything is blended. Add the sugar and half the flour and process again just until it's mixed. Add the rest of the flour and mix again. It may take a while until the mixture holds together. I ended up dumping out the crumbs on a big piece of waxed paper and squeezing it together. However you get the dough to come together, you'll want to wrap it up and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour.
When you're ready to bake, heat the oven to 350 and line some cookie sheets with foil or parchment or whatever you have. Also get out a pastry cloth and rolling pin and flour them--you won't need to flour as heavily as you did for the tea cakes or My Mother's Gingersnaps. Roll the dough (probably about half of it at a time) out to 3/8-inch (like I measured--ha!) and then cut with a round cookie cutter of the size you like. Put the rounds on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart and bake for about 25 minutes or until just slightly darker. Cool on racks and store airtight. This makes more than the 24 cookies Maida said--I guess my cookie cutter is smaller than 2 inches. Enjoy, as Maida says, with a cup of coffee or a glass of milk.