Chewy Ginger Cookies

I'm never sure if ginger cookies remind me more of fall or the holidays. On the one hand, the spiciness makes me think of the changing leaves. But the concept of gingerbread makes me think of Christmas cookies and decorating gingerbread houses. I think it comes down to the form the ginger cookies take.

I made ginger cut-out cookies a few months ago which I would think are more holiday appropriate. These chewy ginger cookies, however, are perfect year-round. But especially right now because they were super tasty.

There are a lot of ginger cookie recipes out there and they'll vary depending on what kind of cookies you like. I can eat a lot of ginger snaps, in fact, I would feign feeling sick to my stomach to claim I needed ginger snaps to settle it. Whatever floats your boat!

These cookies are nice and soft and chewy. I didn't make them very large but you can adjust the size as you like. As always, we're sifting together the dry ingredients and setting them aside. Room temperature butter, or butter that has been softened with a rolling pin, is creamed before adding brown sugar and molasses. The dry ingredients are mixed in and once everything is combined and a nice amber color, you get your hands dirty.

Using a spoon to grab a chunk of dough, gently roll the dough into a ball about the size of a ping pong ball. Roll the dough ball around in granulated sugar to coat and then place on the prepared baking sheet. The cookies will flatten out so leave an inch to an inch and half between dough balls.

Bake for around 20 minutes until they have crackled on top and are firm. It's hard to tell based on color when they're done but should be cooked through. I ate several of these warm and straight out of the oven but I also sandwiched some of that pumpkin ice cream in there. Delicious.

Recipe

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• Granulated sugar for rolling

1. Preheat the oven 375 and line cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter using an electric mixer. Add the brown sugar and mix until smooth. 
4. Add the egg and molasses and continue mixing until combined.
5. Gradually add in the flour mixture and mix together until you can't see anymore flour.
6. Using your hands, roll the dough into ping-pong sized balls. Roll in granulated sugar and place on the cookie sheet about 1/2 inch apart.
7. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes until they are thinned out and firm.
8. Consume immediately. Or wait, either way they're delicious. 

Cut-Out Ginger Cookies

There are a lot of future tiny humans in my office. Lots and lots of pregnant women or pregnant wives of men who work here (really had to reword that sentence so it didn't read "lots of pregnant women and men"). As a result, we've had baby showers! Always a fun time and an excuse for cake. Or in this case, cookies.

My former manager is among the pregnant tribe and she's also a red-head so my immediate thought when she shared her happy news was "Ginger baby!!". So for her shower, I made ginger-baby cookies aka: ginger cookies cut out in the shapes of baby things like onesies and strollers.

These fun shapes are available on Amazon but read carefully, I definitely ordered a mini-cookie cutter which is animal cracker sized. This is one of those recipes where I felt compelled to make excellent cookies but allowed minimal room for error.

There's sugar melting involved. There are always so many moment of panic when we put fire to sugar and cook it. Remember the marshmallows? No? Oh right, because I burned the sugar syrup and there were no marshmallows. I'm down to the bottom of the barrels of my baking supplies so only had enough molasses to have one shot at this melting sugar and molasses thing. You really don't need a huge pot when melting sugar, in fact, it makes it harder because the mixture is spread out so thinly that it will burn very quickly.

As a result of this high-pressure situation, I don't have any photos of this process. But I will say, once you add the baking soda to the sugar and it puffs up, it's glorious. I halved this recipe due to my molasses limitations but ended up using less flour than the half-recipe called for. Really, you want the dough to be a cohesive and not crumbly like sugar cookie dough but not so sticky that you can't roll it out.

All in all, a successful cookie endeavor! And these don't expand as much as sugar cookies do which was super good to figure out.

Recipe (for a full batch)

• 2/3 cup dark or light molasses
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tablespoon ginger
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 3/4 Tablespoons baking soda (I definitely did teaspoons when I made this...things I'm realizing riiiight now)
• 10 2/3 Tablespoons of butter (just under 1 1/2 sticks)
• 1 egg
• 5 cups of flour 

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Combine the molasses, sugar and spices in a small saucepan and stir frequently until the sugar is dissolved. 
3. Add the baking soda to the still hot mixture. Everything will puff up. Remove from heat once the dough stops expanding.
4. Pour the sugar mixture into a bowl containing your cubed butter. Stir to melt the butter.
5. As the mixture cools, add the egg and flour. I recommend adding the flour a cup at a time, you don't want the dough to get too dry.
6. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface, just like you would do with sugar cookies.
7. Punch out your shapes and bake on the parchment-lined sheets until firm.
8. You can ice these if you'd like but they also taste good plain.