Triple Ginger Cookies

I have finally managed to make a perfect soft, chewy ginger cookie. Don’t get me wrong. Ginger snaps can be quite tasty. They definitely have their place. But when I want a ginger cookie, I want soft and chewy, with the deep earthiness of molasses and just the right amount of ginger bite.

Thus was born the Triple Ginger Cookie (inspired by a recipe from Alton Brown). And here I’ll make a small detour to chat a bit about my cooking philosophy and recipes in general. If you’ve seen any of my other recipes you may note that I play a bit fast and loose with quantities and that sometimes my recipes are more like vague guidelines. That’s because that’s how I view most recipes. They are a basic framework, a technique to start me on my path towards what I might be making. I freely change ingredients, sometimes for the good and sometimes… not so much. This recipe was one such rambling tour through one of Alton Brown’s techniques. Feel free to use what I’ve written exactly as I’ve written it. If you do I’m pretty sure you’ll end up with some mighty tasty cookies. But please feel equally free to change things up as much as you please. Add more ginger, use a different flour, or a different kind of sugar/molasses, or add some extra ingredients to make something uniquely your own. That’s my kind of kitchen magic.

Triple Ginger Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 stick softened unsalted butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp and 1tsp blackstrap molasses
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In large bowl, mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, ground ginger, and salt. Set aside.

In bowl of stand mixer using paddle (preferred) or in another large mixing bowl using a hand mixer, cream butter with sugar, molasses, and grated ginger.

Reduce speed to stir/low and add the egg, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix until fully incorporated.

Add the flour mixture in three installments, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Stir in the chopped crystallized ginger.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Portion cookies using your favorite method. I use two spoons to form a little cookie dough blob, then flatten it slightly on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the cookies have soft-set (so that the centers have set, but the cookies are still soft), rotating your pans after 4 minutes.

Once done, let cool on a rack and enjoy!

If you make your cookies between 3/4 and 1 oz you’ll get about 3 dozen 2″ cookies from this batch. They’re really nice sized, not too small that eating one feels unsatisfying, but not so big that eating two feels like too many. But it is a big batch. If you don’t want to bake quite so many many cookies at a time, you can always freeze your cookie dough blobs on a cookie sheet until solid, then bag them up and bake them later. That’s what I did!