Because I admire Nigella Lawson so much I follow her on Twitter. Because I follow her on Twitter I caught her endorsement of a chef I'd never heard of, Nik Sharma.
Based on one of my hero's recommendations I started reading some of his work. Where has this guy been all my life? Nik Sharma is a delight as well as world-shifting revelation to me. Nik revels in his South Asian heritage and is hell-bent on demystifying the foodways of his native land. He explains terms, ingredients, methods and flavor profiles brilliantly. Nik came to the United States to study molecular genetics but traded a lab for a kitchen along the way.
His explanations of things always have descriptions of the underlying chemistry spelled out and for someone like me, that's the bonus to end all bonuses.
In early December, I was working out what I wanted to put on my Christmas baking list. I was following Nigella Lawson for inspiration and she retweeted a recipe sent out by Nik Sharma. The recipe was for a "better tasting gingersnap," and when I followed his link and read his recipe I was hooked.
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Nik Sharma's Extra Spicy Gingersnaps
2 ½ cups/350g all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp ground green cardamom
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup/220g unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
¾ cup/150g packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ cup/120ml date syrup or unsulfured molasses
1 Tbsp grated peeled fresh ginger
½ cup/120g chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup/200g demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 325F/165C. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Dry whisk the flour, ginger, baking soda, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl.
Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fixed with the paddle attachment. Beat over medium speed until the butter is creamed and turns a pale light brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl down with a silicone spatula.
Whisk the egg, date syrup, and ginger with a fork in a small mixing bowl and pour the mixture into the creamed butter. Mix over medium speed until combined and the mixture turns fluffy, 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl down and add the flour mixture. Mix over low speed until combined and there are no visible flecks of dry flour, 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl down and add the crystallized ginger, process over low speed for 30 seconds to 1 minute until the ginger is evenly distributed. Remove the bowl from the mixer.
Place the demerara sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Take out 1 Tbsp of cookie dough using a cookie scoop, shape into a round ball, and toss the ball in the demerara sugar until coated well. If the dough starts to turn too sticky, grease your hands lightly with a little unsalted butter. The cookie scoop will get sticky after a few rounds of scooping. To avoid this, set a small jug filled with hot water and dip the cookie scoop into it to rinse off the stuck dough and shake off the excess water before using. Place the sugared ball of cookie dough on the lined baking sheet. Prepare the rest of the cookie dough in the same manner, spacing them out by about 1 inch/2.5cm on the baking sheet. There should be 16 balls of cookie dough per sheet. Bake two sheets at a time, rotating the pans halfway through during baking until the cookies turn golden brown and crisp, the tops crinkle, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Gingersnaps never seem spicy enough for me and as Sharma explains it, the active compound in ginger undergoes a transformation, depending on what's done to it. To quote from his recipe:
Ginger is a fascinating ingredient; as it’s processed and converted to various forms, the critical chemical gingerol responsible for its gingery heat transforms into new substances. When fresh ginger is dried to produce the ground ginger in our spice jars, the gingerol changes into shagaol. In contrast, in crystallized ginger (prepared through pressure cooking), gingerol turns into zingerone. Each of these ginger flavor molecules differs from each other in their degree of heat, and zingerone, in comparison to the other two, is also sweeter.
The black pepper adds the final zip and trust me, it doesn't read like black pepper. It just lends its voice to make the whole recipe, I don't know, zippier.
What I do know is that the two dozen of these I baked were long gone before Christmas ever rolled around and these things are now on my permanent cookie rotation.
A couple of notes. Demerara sugar is not brown sugar and it's different from Sugar in the Raw. It is dehydrated and crystalized cane juice. It's golden colored, not brown and it behaves differently than other forms of sugar. It doesn't melt in the oven for starters, and that's why it makes such a perfect topping for these cookies. It's sweet without being cloyingly so, and the spices really shine through.
Date syrup is another ingredient that's worth finding. It is nothing more than cooked dates that are beaten and strained after cooking. It has the consistency of gloopy molasses but a flavor that all together its own.
I found demerara, date syrup and green cardamom at an Everest Indian Grocery, about two miles from my house. The demerara was half the price it is at Wegman's and the cardamom cost about a quarter what it goes for in a mainstream grocery store.
Nik Sharma's cookbooks are fantastic and I strongly recommend subscribing to his newsletter, This is a Cook Letter.
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