Gingersnaps

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375 °F (190 °C, gas mark 5, moderately hot). Line a baking sheet with parchment baking paper, or lightly grease it.
2. Cream the butter and the sugar together.
3. Beat in the egg, then the molasses until fully incorporated.
4. Combine the cinnamon, ginger, salt, baking soda, and flour to make a dry mix. Stir the dry mix into the batter until it comes together into a dough.
5. Portion out walnut-sized balls of dough using a medium-size cookie scoop or two teaspoons; alternatively, roll a lump of dough into an inch-thick rope of dough, and then pinch off an appropriate length of the dough. Roll each ball in your hands to make smooth. If the dough is sticky, put it in the refrigerator to chill for an hour (or in the freezer for 15 minutes).
6. Put some plain white sugar in a small bowl, and roll each dough ball around until it is completely covered in sugar. Place the dough balls on the cookie sheet, spacing them out evenly.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. The cookies will be very soft and fragile when they first come out of the oven. Let them rest for a moment, and then use a flat spatula to move them to a wire cooling rack until they have finished cooling.