It's not "Cream." It's "Creme"

There is something spectacular about the ginger/lemon combination, isn't there? I don't know whether it's the mix of warm and cool, of spice and tart, or whether it just looks so nice to have two dark biscuits sandwiching pale yellow icing. Whatever the reason, it's delicious and comforting and pleasing to the tastebud and eye, and Mum and I used to consume large quantities of Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes back in the day.

After Rich Teas, these were the afternoon tea biscuit of choice at Beetle HQ.

Normally I open these little brain dumps by explaining how I came to decide upon this week's particular baking project. This week, I got nothing. I seriously was going to make cheesecake bars until Sunday afternoon; there is still an industrial amount of Neufchatel in the fridge. But then all of a sudden Sunday evening I was throwing together dinner in that spectacularly haphazard way you do when you have only been back from Maine a few hours and you have no food because you strategically cooked everything in your kitchen before you left so that it wouldn't go to waste and there is no way in hell you are stopping at the grocery store on your way home because you've been in the car for seven hours and your butt muscles are cramping and you are not at all emotionally equipped to shop for food let alone actually see or speak to other human beings plus you are wearing your "traveling outfit" which is designed for maximum car comfort but correspondingly minimum social acceptability and consists of a plaid jumper from the Lands End Kids uniform collection, oversize leggings from Target, and Dansko clogs and so you have to make some semblance of a meal out of the two million tomatoes you brought back with you in the car plus the four pounds of artisinal goat cheese because when you are just down the road from the College of the Atlantic and they keep their own goats you'd better BELIEVE you're going to buy all the goat cheese you can get your hands on and the only other things in your fridge are tofu dogs and soymilk and you are insanely hungry because after driving back from what feels like Canada you had to go for a run before your body jittered itself to pieces and you're out of rice cakes and so your post run carbo-inhale consisted of applesauce and baby museli because shut up it's delicious and you are really just pulling things out of cabinets and going "yeah, fine, this'll work" and thanking your lucky stars that a) your mother is very gastronomically accommodating and b) she won't judge when you eat ten hardtack and tofu dog sandwiches in a row, and I was in the middle of slicing up some of the truly most delicious tomatoes known to mankind and watching Asia Business Report and all of a sudden I went "Hey, I'll make Ginger Lemon Cremes this week" and Mum, pulling out her headphones and putting down the fourteen balsam pillows we bought because you can never have enough balsam pillows went "holy crap yes you will." 

So THAT'S how Ginger Lemon Cremes happened. 

GINGER LEMON CREMES

which I was totally going to spell "Creams" so as not to be a pretentious jerkface

but which I subsequently realised is actually totally spelled "Cremes" 

so THERE there are officially called

GINGER LEMON CREMES

The ginger cookie here is, duh, the best Ginger Cookie I know. It's Beatrice's recipe for Finnish Gingersnaps, or Suomalaiset Piparkakut. It's the same one I use at Pikkujoulu when I make 8 million Joulupukkis. It's dark, spicy, sharp, and exactly what you need if you're going to use them for sandwiches with lemon creme filling. 

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) soft or melted butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 heaping tbs ground ginger
• 1 heaping tbs ground cinnamon
• 3 - 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

In a mixmaster, beat the molasses, brown sugar, and butter until very smooth and dark. Add the cream and beat for a bit more, then add the ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour a cup at a time, being prepared to stop after 3 cups. The dough will be very stiff. 

Chill the dough for at least an hour. I did mine overnight this time, which I feel lets the flavours combine, but as long as it's cold when you roll it out you're good to go. 

If you are making straight Gingersnaps, roll out the dough until it's super thin (Beatrice says 1/4 inch here) They are, in that case, supposed to be super wafer-like and super crispy. I did mine slightly thicker so that they would be able to hold the lemon creme without shattering. Cut into rounds or shapes or what have you. I use a juice glass, if anyone is interested. 

Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes, but check frequently because since they are dark it's hard to tell when they start to brown, and if they are really thin they take a lot less than 8 minutes. When I pulled these at 8 minutes EXACTLY they were still slightly puffy, but they hardened up as they cooled. 

So I made these yesterday. It was hot as HADES yesterday. I had to work with tiny portions of the dough and throw it back in the fridge every 10 minutes or so because it just lost the will to live all over my Roulpat. For the first chunk of dough I rolled and cut and spatula-ed like a good little Beetle, but all the rounds were misshapen and squishy because everything was slowly succumbing to heat and humidity and it wasn't pretty. What I ended up doing after that first chunk was pulling off small balls of just-out-of-fridge dough and flattening them with the aforementioned juice glass on the baking sheet. It worked much better in the end; it took much less time, the dough stayed chilled because of course I wasn't working it as much, and the rounds were more symmetrical. 

BUT ON TO THE LEMON CREME

All right. I'm sure there are lots of ways to make Lemon Creme sandwich cookie filling. I'm sure there are lots of ways that use the zest of 10 organic lemons and freshly squeezed lemon juice from lemons just picked from your orchard out back. I am sure. 

We don't have an orchard. What we DO have is a Hannaford.

My version, it must be said, belongs in a trailer park somewhere in rural West Virginia. In a kitchen with a Harley Davidson calendar from 1975 pinned to a pressboard laminate cabinet, surrounded by ruffled curtains pockmarked by Menthol Light cigarette burns. It is Hillbilly Beetle at her best and most scraptastical. It belongs on cinderblocks in the backyard with grass growing through the axles and a stray dog sleeping in the shade underneath. I'm going to share it with you because I'd like to think, dear reader, that at this point in our relationship you will refrain from judging. Or at least refrain from publicly excoriating me. 

Hillbilly Beetle Lemon Creme consists of exactly two ingredients. No measurements required. You take a box of confectioner's sugar and a jar of store bought Lemon Curd. You throw them both in the mixmaster and let it go. 

Yeehaw.

And now for the fun part. 

Mum got the first ones, the ones that had been slightly mangled, and also the ones that were slightly too crispy round the edges. 

 This did not seem to bother her.

The great thing about Hillbilly Lemon Creme is that it's THICK. It's as thick as . . . I don't know . . . I'm trying to think of a trailer park-style comparison but I can't right now. Suffice it to say that it's great to work with because it doesn't ooze out from between the cookies, even when you put a massive great dollop in there. And if you have to pick one up to move it to a carrier tin, you can just pick up the top cookie and the entire thing stays glued together. It's glue, is what I'm saying. It's delicious, delicious, diabetes-inducing glue. 

Again, because it was so hot yesterday I put these in the fridge when I was done with them, wanting them to retain some semblance of prettiness for the LL's this afternoon. Even with industrial-waste-consistency icing, I was worried that they would go all gooey and messy overnight in the kitchen. I chilled Mum's plate of ugly ones too, and through a mouthful last night she managed to get out that she liked them cold. So there you have it. 

So now, dear reader, I just have to find places for my new balsam pillows, take four more showers using all the different goatmilk soaps we bought, and continue shaking pine needles out of my socks because even almost a week later, those little buggers are still there. 

Although, truth, sunrise hiking by yourself without a map, armed with a phone with spotty coverage, four pieces of kleenex, and, crucially, Vanilla Mint chapstick . . . I kind of asked for that one.