By now you guys all know I’m in a not-so-secret love affair with maple syrup. We New Englander’s just love ourselves some maple syrup. And what’s not to love? It comes from freaking trees people. Oh and it tastes amaze-balls. Obviously.
Even though I live in Seattle, I’m lucky enough to find myself surrounded with gallons of real New England maple syrup. My mom is responsible for keeping me well stocked at all times (thanks Mom!). I have so much that I actually keep some bottles in the trunk of my car. You know, in case of an emergency or something. I’m sure my car could totally run on maple syrup instead of gas. Right? Let’s go with that.
Anyways…
Anytime I spy a recipe with maple syrup, I’m all over it. Like these cookies. They are similar to ginger snaps, except all the molasses has been replaced with maple syrup. Happy dance. You end up with a slightly milder tasting cookie and they don’t bake us as dark as a traditional ginger snap. But that’s something I really like about them, because sometimes I find molasses can be very overpowering. These Maple Ginger Snaps are a bit more delicate, but still deliver a good punch of ginger flavor. They have a chewy, soft center and an outside that provides the perfect amount of resistance when you bite into it.
If you are going to be serious about using maple syrup in your kitchen, then go out and find yourself the real stuff (not maple flavored syrup, which is basically just corn syrup). Once you taste real maple syrup, you won’t go back to the fake stuff. And try to find Grade B if you can. The flavor is much more intense, making it perfect for cooking.
Oh and mom, please send more syrup…
Cheers,
Liz
Recipe slightly adapted from butter me up, Brooklyn!
A great step by step tutorial on making brown butter can be found here.
Ingredients
- For the Cookie Dough
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 tsp. maple extract
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- For the Sugar Coating
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 tsp. maple syrup
- 1/4. tsp. ginger
Instructions
- Make the browned butter. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Continue heating the butter, whisking constantly, until it begins to foam. Continue to cook (and continue to whisk) until the butter has deepened in color and smells nutty. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the browned butter into a measuring cup (you should have 1/4 of a cup). Be sure to scrape up any browned bits. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Make the cookie dough. In the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the brown sugar, maple syrup, extracts and the browned butter. Beat until smooth. Add the egg and beat until well combined. Slowly add the flour and the rest of the dry ingredients, beating until well combined. Transfer the bowl to your refrigerator to chill the dough for about 1 hour (longer is OK too).
- In the meantime, make the sugar coating. Place the sugar in a small bowl. While stirring with a fork, slowly add the maple syrup. It will be clumpy at first, but keep mixing with the fork and it will eventually even out. Stir in the ginger. Set aside.
- Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form it into balls (I used about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough per ball). Roll the dough balls in the sugar coating and place them on your parchment paper-lined baking sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 to 2 inches between each dough ball.
- Transfer to your pre-heated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for about 5 minutes before removing them to a wire rack. Continue with the remaining cookie dough until all the cookies are baked.
- Once the cookies are fully cooled, then can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for several days.
these are amazing! I went into autopilot and creamed the butter instead of browning it, but even so they’re delicious. I inherited a 1/2 gallon jug of maple syrup from friends who were moving (in addition to the 1/2 gallon I already had open in the fridge) so this is a great way to use it up! 🙂
That’s great to hear Catherine. You can never have too much maple syrup….:-)
I was born in Québec and we love our Maple Syrup. These are incredible. I am pinning right now!
I can never have enough maple syrup. It’s so good!
We have a dog named Maple and bunny named Gingersnap so this cookies has become a Christmas cookie staple at our house in honor of the pets! And it helps that they are delicious too!!
That’s so awesome, Kelly! Love that story!