Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ginger Cookies

Ginger is supposed to be good for the tummy, right? Well maybe not when you eat a few of these before you get anything healthy (ie lunch) in your stomach. Of course, that's what I did. :)

I made these because a friend's mom was feeling a little sick stomach'ed (yes it's a word) lately, & hadn't been eating very much, so I thought these cookies might settle her stomach a bit. I ended up using a combination of recipes, using the Food Blog Search as my guide. I think I mostly used this recipe as my starting point, but in the end mine weren't a whole lot like the original. I didn't have any molasses (& won't anytime soon, as apparently at Tim's job they use molasses to make bacteria grow & eat up contaminants in the ground...he can't stand the smell) so I used a combo of honey & dark brown sugar. Obviously these cookies didn't have that pretty brown color that makes ginger cookies famous, but the flavor was amazing anyway. I think the ginger flavor stood out a bit better in these cookies than in molasses-based recipes.

I also almost didn't add the water to the recipe, since I included an egg, but the batter seemed a little too thick (read: I couldn't stir it) so I put some water in there after all.

Ginger-y Ginger Cookies
adapted from Frantic Home Cook

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1 cup light brown sugar
1/8 cup honey & 1/8 cup dark brown sugar, blended
1 egg
1/3 cup water
2 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup minced crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking sheets. In medium bowl mix together flour, baking soda, spices & salt. Set aside. Cream together butter & light brown sugar in another bowl. Add egg, water & honey/dark brown sugar mixture. Combine wet & dry ingredients & blend. Stir in crystallized ginger.


These were really easy to make (besides the mincing of ginger by hand) which was wonderful. As I mentioned before, they definitely have a strong ginger flavor & they also have a nice light texture. I made them quite small so the recipe probably made well over 50 cookies. If your cookies are larger, I'm sure there would be quite a few less!

Just a note, the cookies did not spread at all, so you might want to press them down with the bottom of a glass or your hand before baking.

And then use the glass to pour some nice cold milk to go with these cookies. :)

Enjoy!

2 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

The ginger in those cookies would definitely make MY tummy feel better - and happily full :0)

So lovely of you to make these cookies for your friend's mom!

Melissa said...

oh these look tasty. I will have to bookmark this and try them :)