1993 1st Place: Ginger Cookies

1993 first place ginger cookies earned their ribbon for a reason. Instead of creaming butter and sugar like a standard cookie dough, this recipe starts with a hot syrup of sugar, dark corn syrup, water, and ground spices brought to a boil. The butter melts into that hot syrup, then the flour is stirred in to make a stiff, claylike dough that overnights in the fridge before rolling.

That 12-hour rest is the move. The flour fully hydrates, the spices bloom into the fat, and the dough firms up enough to hold sharp cookie-cutter edges through baking. Roll a sixth of the dough at a time on the cookie sheet itself so you don’t have to transfer cut shapes.

The ground ginger, cinnamon, and clove combination is a classic gingerbread profile, but the cooked syrup method gives a deeper, almost caramel undertone you don’t get from raw-mixed gingerbread. Once cooled, the cookies take painted decoration beautifully thanks to their flat, dense surface.

Pro Tips

• The dough must rest at least 12 hours. Skipping this step gives a sticky, hard-to-roll dough and softer-edged cookies.
• Roll directly on ungreased cookie sheets to avoid distorted shapes during transfer.
• Bake all cookies on a sheet at the same thickness. Mixing thick and thin shapes burns the thin ones before the thick ones set.
• Watered-down food coloring painted on with a fine brush after cooling gives gorgeous detailed designs that hold up in storage.

Variations

• Stir in 1 teaspoon black pepper and ½ teaspoon cardamom with the spices for a Scandinavian pepparkakor flavor.
• Swap dark corn syrup for molasses for a deeper, more bitter-edged ginger cookie.
• Sandwich pairs with lemon icing or cream cheese frosting after cooling.