Ginger snaps baked using Zuzu’s recipe.
Photo by ZuZu Montoya
The little girl who played Zuzu Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” grew up and in 2000 she (Karolyn Grimes) wrote a cookbook called “Zuzu Bailey’s It’s A Wonderful Life Cookbook: Recipes and Anecdotes Inspired by America’s Favorite Movie.” In it she – not surprisingly – lists a recipe for baking gingersnaps which she calls ‘”Zuzu, My Little Ginger Snap” Cookies.’ I’d like to state that there is no reason to believe just because she played Zuzu Bailey (who was famously named after the snaps) that her recipe bears any resemblance to the actual product. As far as I can tell it doesn’t but we couldn’t resist giving it a go.
Coated with brown sugar and about to go into the oven.
Photo by ZuZu Montoya
I won’t list the recipe here out of respect for Ms Grimes’ copyright (you can buy her book) but I will say that it’s easy enough to find on the internet. I’ve wanted to cook them for some time but never got around to it. When a friend was visiting recently she offered to be the head chef. So I put the recipe in front of her, we started assembling the ingredients and my wife ZuZu starting taking photographs (and helped bake).
I will say that while these may or may not taste like the originals they were very delicious. The recipe makes a molasses cookie that is very crisp. But from the photographs I’ve seen of the actual Zu Zu Ginger Snaps they were a light brown (the recipe produced dark brown snaps) and I suspect more gingery/spicy.
So now I’m on the hunt for a recipe that approximated what they originally tasted like. Please let me know if you have any first-hand accounts of their taste or if anyone knows of an old recipe that attempted to duplicate the famous snaps. I’d love to try it out and report the results.
Zu Zu Ginger Snaps 