*** UPDATE ***
Since writing this post I’ve made these cookies a couple more times. I found that the base for my chocolate chip cookies give the these ginger cookies a more chewy texture. Thus, I opted to go with shorting rather than butter. I also prefer to use both baking powder and baking soda in my cookies. The new revised recipe is below.
The weather around here has been quite nice for the month of October. While it might not exactly be your typical autumn weather there is still a hint of autumn in the air.
That feeling of autumn and the holiday’s just around the corner got me in a baking mood. I wanted to bake something quick and easy but something seasonal.
I decided I would try my hand at Ginger Cookies. I’d never made ginger cookies and partially because I’ve always felt they were a little sharp. However, I recently watched a Good Eats episode on Netflix in which chef Alton Brown makes ginger snaps with fresh ginger.
In the episode he makes note that the ground ginger is not like fresh ginger. I thought hey, maybe that’s why I don’t like store-bought ginger cookies. Maybe I should bake some of my own with fresh ginger.
Last month I made a peach chicken dish with fresh ginger and really liked it. I also found that working with fresh ginger was pretty easy, kind of like working with a garlic clove in some ways.
Making the cookies
When making the cookies I pretty much followed the Alton Brown’s recipe from the food network, except I couldn’t find candied ginger, and didn’t want to make any so I omitted it.
- 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powered
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon ground clove
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup vegetable shorting
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
- Topping
- 1/4 cup Sugar and sugar glitter mixture
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cardamom, clove and salt.
- Place the brown sugar and shorting into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on low speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the molasses, egg and fresh ginger and beat on medium for 1 minute.
- Next add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until well combined.
- With a 2-teaspoon sized scoop, crest cookie ball. Roll in 1/4 cup mixture of sugar and sugar glitter. Place cookie dough ball onto a parchment lined half sheet pan approximately 2-inches apart. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 12 minutes for slightly chewy cookies or 15 minutes for more crisp cookies. Rotate the pan halfway through cooking.
- Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to stay on the sheet pan for 30 seconds before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with all of the dough. Store in an airtight container for up 10 days. If desired, you may scoop and freeze the cookie dough on a sheet pan and once frozen, place in a resealable bag to store. Bake directly from the freezer as above.
Weather the cardamom made a difference I can’t say, but it has a nice scent so I plan to use it in more recipes to get my money’s worth out of it.
Lastly, after taking the cookies from the oven, I thought they needed a little something. So I sprinkled some cinnamon sugar over the tops of them.
The Tasting
The cookies were pretty good. Like I said I’ve never been a fan of ginger cookies, but I really liked these.
I took most of the cookies up to work and my colleagues all loved them. In fact they were all gone by the end of the day.
After making these cookies I noticed that they were a little flat. I think this is because of the butter used in the recipe. The base of the recipe is pretty similar to my chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I’ve discovered that shorting will make a chewier cookie than butter. Therefore , the next time I make these I plan to try it with shortening in place of butter.
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