ginger cookies

I must confess to something. I'm going to use this space, as it seems the appropriate place to do so. I'm not the best cookie baker out there. I LIKE cookies, and I bake them, and they turn out well most of the time, but I always have strange issues to work through. I'm impatient, so I don't like to wait for my ingredients to be the right temperature--butter melted in the microwave through overzealous defrosting, I'm looking at you.

However, cookies are portable and delicious, they are good for potlucks and game night and bringing to work, and most of the time you can make the dough ahead of time by at least a day, which is great if you don't have a lot of time.

I stumbled across the following recipe for ginger cookies last week when I was yearning for a warm apartment filled with the delicious perfume of baking cookies. I adore ginger, and the prospect of a cookie with crystalized, fresh, AND ground ginger? Too delicious to ignore.

(Bon Appetit 2009)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup minced crystalized ginger

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup (1 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1/4 cup light/mild molasses

1 1/2 tsp grated peeled ginger

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

Preheat your oven to 350F, and move the oven racks (if you are fancy and have more than one--my tiny oven does not) to the top third and bottom third of your oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and crystalized ginger.

Cream butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl using an electric mixer or elbow grease, if your mixer has gone a bit off it its old age like mine has. Add egg, molasses, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Beat this mixture together to blend, then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients gradually--mix until blended.

Measure about 1/3 cup of white sugar into a bowl, then roll tablespoon-sized scoops of dough into balls and coat with sugar before placing them on the baking sheet. Place the cookies approximately 1 1/2 inches apart, and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges crack but the center remains slightly soft.
These cookies stayed fresh for the few days after baking that they survived--I will definitely make these again, and perhaps pack them with even more ginger next time! They were gingery and delicious for fall, but could be given a little added bite if that's your style.

Ps-I wasn't planning to make a pun via photo, but it just happened.