I grew up eating these cookies during the fall and winter months as a kid. I recently found out that the recipe comes from one of our old neighbors, a woman named Ruth Bennet. It’s one of those recipes that your friends will ask you for.
The cookie is flavored with some molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger. They taste incredible, with slightly crispy edges and a soft center.
What I think is most interesting about this particular cookie recipe is how the cookie surfaces crack apart in a random and beautiful fashion as they bake in the oven. I think this is in part due to the use of vegetable oil as the fat component here instead of melted butter. They are really a thrill to bake, and are difficult the stop eating.
Ginger Crinkle Cookies
I grew up eating these cookies during the fall and winter months as a kid. I recently found out that the recipe comes from one of our old neighbors, a woman named Ruth Bennet. It’s one of those recipes that your friends will ask you for. The cookie is flavored with some molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger. They taste incredible, with slightly crispy edges and a soft center. What I think is most interesting about this particular cookie recipe is how the cookie surfaces crack apart in a random and beautiful fashion as they bake in the oven. I think this is in part due to the use of vegetable oil as the fat component here instead of melted butter. They are really a thrill to bake, and are difficult the stop eating.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup white granulated sugar, plus an extra ¼ cup for coating the dough balls later
- 1 whole egg
- ¼ cup molasses
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ¾ tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the 2/3 of a cup of vegetable oil with the 1 cup of white granulated sugar.
- Add the whole egg, and whisk for 60 seconds.
- Whisk in the ¼ cup molasses, and stir to fully combine.
- In a separate bowl, combine the 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tsp baking soda, ¾ tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, and ¼ tsp ground nutmeg, and stir to evenly distribute the dry ingredients.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and stir gently until fully combined.
- Set up a small bowl near the cookie dough that is filled with ¼ cup of white granulated sugar, for coating your cookie dough balls.
- Grab a small knob of cookie dough with your hands, and roll the dough into round balls that are roughly 75% of the size of a golf ball.
- Toss each cookie dough ball in the bowl of white granulated sugar until the exterior is evenly coated with sugar.
- Arrange sugar-coated dough balls on parchment paper on a sheet tray.
- Bake in the oven at 350F for roughly 12-14 minutes, depending on how soft you want the center of your cookies to be.
- *The cookies should have a cracked surface on top when they are done baking.
Notes
These dough balls freeze great, which gives you the flexibility to bake off two or ten of these at a time.
