I have been having an incredibly busy couple of weeks. Have you missed me? Life has been topsy turvy, I launched 2 website redesigns at my day job, have a third one launching this week. I am probably going to be having surgery on Thursday (if everything goes according to plan). Needless to say, October has been one heck of a crazy month.
I also realized that the month is mostly over, and I haven’t baked much at all this month. There has been so much going on that I hadn’t been able to just stop and take a few hours to create a recipe and bake something. And I really needed to bake something. And I had no idea what to bake. So I did what any baking-obsessed girl would do. I pulled out 2 things from my cabinet and hoped that I could make a dessert that would be delicious. Thank goodness it worked.
Lately, I have been obsessed with ginger. There were brown butter ginger doughnuts, bourbon ginger peach pie, ginger pumpkin doughnuts. I had been buying these awesome ginger chips (chocolate chip sized bits of candied ginger) until they stopped carrying them at Williams-Sonoma. I had to settle for regular crystallized ginger & chopped it myself. and I finally got my hands on some of those new Enjoy Life Mega Chocolate Chunks. So clearly I had to make ginger & chocolate cookies. I am in love with the texture of these. They are soft but not crumbly. They are wonderfully delicate with just a touch of chew. I want to start a campaign to get Enjoy Life to add these cookies to the package. They are that good.
- 385 grams (3¼ cups) gluten free all purpose flour*
- 1½ teaspoons xantham gum**
- 55 grams (6 tablespoons) cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 170 grams (1½ sticks) butter or Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, softened
- 215 grams (1 cup firmly packed) dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg***
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 100 grams crystallized ginger, chopped
- 100 grams (1/3 package) Enjoy Life Mega Chocolate Chunks
- 170 grams (1½ cups) confectioners sugar, sifted
- 1 tablespoon milk****
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- Sift together flour, xantham gum (if using), cocoa, cloves, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (this recipe won’t work with a hand mixer – the dough is too stiff) cream together brown sugar and butter.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg. Beat to combine.
- Pour in the vanilla, scrape down the sides and beat again.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 3 even groups, scraping down the sides between additions.
- Mix in the ginger & chocolate chunks and stir until they are evenly distributed.
- Separate the dough into thirds, put them into seperate ziploc baggies and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.
- When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease or line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Divide the dough (it will be pretty stiff) into balls the size of ping-pong balls (about 2 tablespoons of dough) and as you put them on the cookie sheet, smoosh them so they are about 3/8 of an inch thick. Leave about an inch of space between the smooshed dough.
- Bake for 6-8 minutes.
- Once your cookies are baked, combine the sifted powdered sugar, milk and lemon juice together. Dip the still warm cookies into the glaze and set on a cooling rack (put news paper or a cookie sheet under the rack to collect drips). If the icing is too thick, add more lemon juice or milk ½ teaspoon at a time to achieve your desired consistencey.
ZOMG! Those look AMAZING!!!!! Let me know if you need anything on Thursday if your surgery goes through. My night plans are off so I am free if you need/want anything.
OH! So, if you could recreate the Whole Foods Molasses Ginger cookies I would bow at your feet because those are my FAVORITE and my local WF doesn’t carry them anymore. le sigh.