Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Ultimate Ginger Cookie

This last weekend, Cady and I decided to tackle Melissa's recipe for The Ultimate Ginger Cookie.  One of my goals for this year is to try two new recipes a month, so this would be number two ever since our Sour Cherry Pie last week.


The Ultimate Ginger Cookie:

  • 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups dark brown sugar, lightly packed
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2/3 cup molasses
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup chopped crystallized ginger (optional)
  • Granulated sugar, for rolling the cookies

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and salt. Then, stir it together.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the brown sugar, oil, and molasses on medium speed for 5 minutes.  Turn the mixer to low speed, add the egg, and beat for 2 minutes.

With the mixer still on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Slowly add the crystallized ginger and mix until combined. If you aren't using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer, you want to switch it for this part because the dough gets pretty dense and it might bend your mixer.

Scoop the dough with a cookie scoop (or a spoon).  With your hands, roll each cookie into a ball & then roll in granulated sugar.  Place them on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.  The cookies will be crackled on the top and soft inside.  Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 1 to 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

(Copy and pasted from Melissa's recipe post.)

I accidentally put the eggs in before I was supposed to, but it turned out okay.  And we powdered our own spices from cinnamon sticks and actual nutmeg, etc.


In the end, the cookies needed about 13 minutes in the oven and they turned out a little darker brown on the bottom, hard on the outside and ooey, gooey, and chewy on the inside.  Yum!  It made 40 cookies, but I ate about 4 cookies worth of dough before.

Of course, like when I made the cherry pie, I forgot my camera again while we were baking.  But Melissa has some great pictures.  I took a bag of cookies home for my house, but the pictures I got weren't in good lighting.  Definitely refer to Melissa's blog for pictures.



They taste like they would be great Christmas cookies, so maybe save these babies for a holiday treat.  But they're almost as good in the spring!

2 comments:

  1. Oh man, I want one of those RIGHT NOW! : ) Hmmm, that must mean it's lunch time. Ha!

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  2. Yum! That's always one of my NY resolutions. To try at least one new recipe each month. I usually do a dinner, but love that you do desserts. :)

    Oh, and I was NOT happy that Brad picked Emily. Only watched the last 2 shows, but I wanted Chantal.

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