Flicker’s Lair Blog

We had a very successful trip to the grocery store on the weekend, we only popped in for a couple of things, but as always had to check the specials shelf. What a score!

There were tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, cauliflower and best of all a huge pack of ginger. Like over 2lbs of ginger for $1! Needless to say the last few days have seen me in the kitchen A LOT trying to turn all of these into storable goodness.

This has included a large batch of cream of tomato soup, cauliflower cheese, mushroom quiche and of course the necessary baked goods to try and make a dent in the ginger.

And when using up ginger of course the most logical first choice is my very favourite cookies from my very favourite cookies cook book Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies from Martha Stewart’s Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share (UK | US)

They are just the right balance of ginger to chocolate, perfectly soft, chewy and totally irresistible!

For variation I also made a batch of these Fresh-Ginger Cookies. They are pretty good, spicy, soft and cakey, although maybe a little too cakey.

I wonder what would happen if I tried the perfect choc-ginger recipe without the cocoa and choc chips? I might have to give that a try. But first I want to make a batch of this Cranberry Applesauce with Fresh Ginger, quite apart from it sounding tasty I think it will make really interesting apple sauce bread!

Fortunately I have learnt that ginger can be frozen either whole or grated. So anything that doesn’t get used up will make its way to the freezer for future batches of Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies!

RECIPE

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

• 1½ cups plus 1 tbs all-purpose flour
• 1¼ tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (I have always just used ground nutmeg)
• 1 tbs unsweetened dutch-process cocoa powder
• ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 tbs freshly grated peeled ginger
• ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
• ½ cup unsulfured molasses
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1½ tsp boiling water
• 7 ounces best-quality semi-sweet chocolate, cut into ¼ inch chunks (I just use chocolate chips)
• ¼ cup sugar

1. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (I use baking mats)
2. In a bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and fresh ginger on medium speed until lightened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.
3. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Mix in chocolate; turn onto plastic wrap. Pat out to a 1-inch thickness; seal with wrap. Refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.
4. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Roll the dough out to 1½ inch balls; place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Chill 20 minutes. Roll in granulated sugar. Bake until surfaces just begin to crack, 10-12 minutes, rotating halfway through. Let cool 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Cookies are best the day they are made, but can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days. They can also be frozen.

Why not head over to one of these tasty carnivals and check out what everyone else is cooking up!

Tags: cookies, ginger

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Food & Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.