Ginger Drop Cookies —rsquo; The Taste of Settling In for the Long Season

The kitchen is in full fall mode. The oven at 375 (always 375), the crockpot on the counter, the pantry stocked with jars from last August's canning — the evidence of a woman who preserves summer against winter and loss against forgetting and food against everything.

Thursday was tater tot hotdish, because Thursday is always tater tot hotdish and the schedule doesn't change for anything — not pandemics, not loss, not the passage of years. The tater tots go in at 375 and come out golden and the family eats them and the eating is the Thursday and the Thursday is the structure and the structure holds. But I also made chicken and dumplings earlier this week, because the kitchen doesn't only look backward. The kitchen grows.

The trees along the highway are turning — maples red, oaks gold, the Bradford pears doing their useless purple thing. Iowa falls are short and violent and beautiful. The kitchen shifts to slow mode: crockpots, Dutch ovens, the oven at 375 from September through April. The fall cooking is the cooking of a woman settling in for the long season.

The kitchen was already in slow-season mode — the crockpot humming, the oven holding at 375 — and after I’d put the tater tot hotdish away and watched the oaks turn gold through the window, I wanted something small and warm to round out the week. Ginger drop cookies are what fall tastes like to me: dark with molasses, sharp with spice, the kind of thing you can mix in one bowl without thinking too hard. They don’t need a special occasion. They just need October.

Ginger Drop Cookies

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup for rolling
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup molasses

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and 1 cup sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes.
4. Add wet ingredients. Beat in the egg and molasses until fully combined and smooth.
5. Combine. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
6. Shape. Place the remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons, roll into balls, then roll each ball in sugar to coat.
7. Bake. Place cookies 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake 10–12 minutes, until the tops are just set and crackled. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool.
8. Cool. Let cookies rest on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Store in an airtight container up to one week.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 95 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 55mg