What is it about this time of year that makes a person (well, okay, not just any old person, but ME, a person) want to bake cookies?
I don’t really have anyone to give cookies away to, since mostly everyone I know won’t eat them. They’re fattening.
I shouldn’t be eating them. They’re fattening.
My kids shouldn’t be eating them. They’re–loaded with sugar. (Ha. Gotcha.)
Still, the season wouldn’t be the same without the scent of cookies in the air. Forget your fancy-schmanzy “Sugar Cookie” scented candles. It’s not the same. (For one thing, they make me want a cookie, and if there aren’t any, I go out and buy them. Which I really shouldn’t do. Because storebought cookies are–full of additives! (Ha. Gotcha again.)
I have a cookie-baking routine. The first cookies to be made are my Auntie Fran’s Gingersnaps. They are the most fragrant and the easiest to churn out. They need to be rolled into balls, then dipped into sugar and at this stage of the game, I’m still into getting my fingers coated with cookie dough and sugar. Closer to the holiday, when the Cookie Factory has been moving along at full steam (or half-steam, or sometimes barely enough steam), I don’t have the fortitude for cookie gunk on my hands.
But I digress.
Here, for the first time ever on the Internet, is my Auntie Fran’s Gingersnap cookie recipe. People have told me these are the best they’ve tasted; one woman had searched for years for a gingersnap recipe like her grandmother’s, and these were it. 
If you make this recipe, please let me know how you liked them!
CREAM:
3/4 c. shortning
1c. sugar
4 T. molasses
1 egg
SIFT:
2 c. flour
2 t. baking soda
2 t. cloves
1 t. cinammon
1 t. ginger
Combine–smooth–form balls and dip tops in sugar–Bake at 375 for 13 mins.
Note: Plain white table sugar is nice but colored Christmas sugar is good, too. Be careful not to coat the bottom–cookies will burn. Also, baking time was originally 15-18 mins., but I found they’d burn; adjust for your own oven.
