Showing posts sorted by date for query ginger cookies. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query ginger cookies. Sort by relevance Show all posts

12/12/14

Chewy Chocolate Ginger Cookies






To finish out our week of cookiescookiescookies, I've partnered with the Harmons bloggers to present a Christmas cookie post! We gathered a while back to share holiday cookie recipes and have a little tasting party. It was a sweet afternoon of sugar and spice.




Have you ever made a macaron cookie? My friend Caroline is an expert at macaron making.  Her Pumpkin French Macaron Cookies are amazing! Such a fun addition to your holiday cookie platter.
And the flavors! They taste just like the holidays.





Becky, from Vintage Mixer made Frosted Honey Christmas Cookies. They reminded me of a recipe that would have been passed through a family, hand written on a 3x5 card, and tucked away in a recipe box!  I loved the way Becky piped the frosting on this simple and not overly sweet cookie.



Jesseca at One Sweet Appetite was on Channel 4 News in SLC recently, and shared her recipe for these oh-so-darling Melted Snowmen Cookies. Wouldn't your kids love these? They're almost too cute to eat.


The Harmons bakers shared their recipe for Peppermint Ganache Cookies. If you're a peppermint lover, make sure to check out this recipe! Also,  if you are looking for a special ingredient for your holiday baking and can't find it, the amazingly helpful employees at Harmons will special order it for you.

For my contribution to our cookie-fest, and to end our week of Christmas cookie posts, I baked up a ginger cookie with a special twist.
The best kind of twist.
C H O C O L A T E !
What could be more wonderful than a Chewy Chocolate Ginger Cookie? This recipe comes together in just a few minutes and is what I call a pantry-ready cookie, meaning most of the items for this cookie are probably already in your pantry. Or in your mom's pantry.
My family is officially addicted to ginger and chocolate.


photo credit Caroline Drake

Chewy Chocolate Ginger Cookies
A Bountiful Kitchen
print recipe

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup unsweetened powdered chocolate
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
sugar, granulated or powdered for coating cookies

Place butter, oil, sugar, egg, molasses and unsweetened cocoa in a large bowl and beat together until blended well.
Mix remaining dry ingredients into wet ingredients, if using a mixer, this should be done on low speed and take about 10-15 seconds.
Form dough into balls using a 2 inch scoop. Roll in granulated sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Crowd cookies together on one cookie sheet and place in fridge for about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place cookies on cookies sheets (about 6-8 per sheet) , and slightly flatten with palm of hand. Bake for about 8 minutes or until set. The cookies will flatten as they cool. Sprinkle with additional sugar after removing from oven.


12/2/12

ABK's 3rd Annual Christmas Cookie Extravaganza - Soft Gingersnap Cookies




Back by popular demand, ABK's third annual Christmas Cookie Extravaganza!
I know, you're excited. For the next several days, I'll share some amazing new cookie recipes for you to try this holiday season.
First up: Every Christmas cookie tray needs a ginger cookie. You'll love this cookie. I made about 4 batches in November. They freeze well, so you can start baking today and store them in the freezer to take out later in the month.
Freezing is a good idea.
That or buying the next size up in pants.
You choose.



Soft Ginger Snaps
Pinch of Salt Lake cookbook
print recipe

3/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses (light or dark)
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
granulated sugar for coating

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar. Add eggs and molasses, mix until smooth.
Add flour, soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Mix just until wet and dry ingredients are incorporated.
Refrigerate dough for about 1 hour or until chilled.
Form dough into balls ( I used a 1-inch cookie scoop) and roll each ball of dough in granulated sugar. Bake on ungreased baking sheet for 6-8 minutes or until set. Do not over bake. Cookies will be puffy when removed from oven, but will flatten as they cool. Tops will look cracked.
Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

Tips:
-You may make the dough and store in refrigerator up to one week until ready to bake.
-You may use powdered sugar if you like the cookie to have more of a white appearance on top.
-When freezing, lay flat on a jelly roll pan or large plastic container. Place cookies in single layers in pan, separate with wax or parchment paper.


12/11/11

Gingersnaps




I have a really hard time resisting soft and chewy ginger cookies in any form. Some of my favorites: Cutler's Gingerbread Cookie with Butter cream Frosting or Giant Ginger Cookies or Melinda's Ginger Cream Cookies with Browned Butter Icing. I love soft and chewies so much, I hardly ever make crisp cookies.  When I saw this recipe in the Sweet Melissa Bakes cookbook a while ago, I loved the comment Melissa made about giving these to babies that were fussing in her bakery. Really, these calmed crying babies? She also feeds them to her horse. Not sure if that was a ringing endorsement, but I decided to give the spicy, buttery cookies a try.  
I loved the way the cookies tasted and also loved the way they stacked. Perfect piled up in the center of a Christmas cookie tray. Or stacked in a cello bag tied with a festive ribbon.
Are you cookied-out yet??















Gingersnaps
The Sweet Melissa Baking Book
print recipe

1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1/3 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 cup of love (not really in the recipe, but Jake added this when I asked him to type it up for me while I was washing dishes. Very funny, Jacob Robert)

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the sugars and butter until light and fluffy, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Beat in the egg. Stir in the molasses.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and white pepper.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in the three batches, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Position a rack in the center of oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

Using a small cookie scoop, form balls approximately 1 inch in diameter, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.



12/7/11

Cutler's Gingerbread Cookies with Buttercream Frosting





Tuesday morning at South Fork Hardware local baker and restaurant owner Curt Cutler from Cutler's Cookies taught a Christmas Cookie class. Cutler's has been a household name in Bountiful for over thirty years now.  Curt's mother started the business in the former 5 Points Mall in Bountiful.  What she started has grown into a family business that bakes cookies and cupcakes, and makes sandwiches, soups and salads year round.  Cutler's bakes a variety of specialty cookies too at holiday time. My favorites are the Iced Gingerbread, Mexican Wedding cookies (aka Snowball cookies), and the Gingerbread cookies with Butter cream Frosting. Gingerbread topped with butter cream are one of my all time favorite cookies.
Forget about breakfast. And lunch.
Is a gingerbread cookie an acceptable meal replacement? Yes, I think it is.





Cutler's Gingerbread Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
Cutler's Cookies
print recipe

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup margarine*
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup molasses (Curt prefers the Grandma's brand)
1/2 teaspoon slat
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ginger
1 1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 1/2 cups cake flour (more if needed, so it's not too sticky)**

Cream butter, margarine and sugar. Add egg and molasses and stir until combined.
Mix dry ingredients together and gradually stir into the molasses mixture.
Chill dough for about 1-2 hours. Chilling the dough makes it easier to handle if rolling dough out to make cut out cookies.
When ready to bake, scoop the dough, using an ice cream or large cookie scoop.
Drop onto a parchment lined baking sheet, about 6 per sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Cookies are done when top is crackled and middle no longer looks wet or shiny.
This dough may be used to make gingerbread men.

Tips:
-*You may also use all butter, a combination of butter and margarine, or a cup of butter flavored Crisco.
- If desired, roll the dough in sugar before baking.
-**Cutler's uses a commercial cake flour. If you use all purpose flour, start with 4 cups of flour, and add more flour as needed to produce a dough that is not too sticky.


Cutler's Buttercream Frosting:

1 cup butter, room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the butter and the powdered sugar together until smooth in a large bowl, or a mixer with the paddle or whisk attachment. Add vanilla. Beat well. Add milk, a tablespoon at a time until the frosting is at desired consistency. Continue beating until smooth.
Frost the cooled cookies. 

12/14/10

Melinda's Ginger Cream Cookies with Browned Butter Icing






Every Christmas cookie platter NEEDS something ginger. These cookies are soft, like a sugar cookie, with a little brown butter icing. Yum. Kind of like a thin slice of a gingerbread with glaze.
Sweet Ginger Brown! Grant loves to say that. Don't ask me why.





Ginger Cream Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
adapted from Melinda's Grandma Butters recipe

Cookies:
2 cubes or 1 cup butter
1 cup molasses
1 cup white sugar
1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs
1 tablespoon baking soda, dissolved in 1/4 cup water
6 cups flour, approximately (I use about 7 cups total)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bring butter, molasses, sugar, spices and salt to boil. Cool.
Pour into large bowl.
Add two beaten eggs.
Add the soda/ water mixture to the batter. The batter will foam up a bit.
Add the flour 1 cup at a time. After mixing in flour, add more if needed to produce dough that is not too sticky to roll out. Roll out a portion of the dough with floured rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thickness.
Using a cookie or biscuit cutter 2 1/4 inch in diameter, cut the cookies and place on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for about 8 minutes at 375 degrees. Ice while cookies are warm.

Brown Butter Icing:
(see tip #4 below)

1 cube or 1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup cream, half and half or milk (if you want the icing to be thin, use milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb powdered sugar
dash salt

Brown butter over medium heat in saucepan. Remove from heat as soon as butter turns golden. Add rest of ingredients. Ice cookies while still warm.

yield about 4 dozen cookies.

Tips:
After making a few batches, I learned the following:
1. Simple cookies.
2. Don't need to be refrigerated, but you may refrigerate after assembling the dough.
3. Clear counter space, you'll need it to leave the cookies out till the icing is set up.
4. Browned Butter : Click here for a little tutorial. It took me 3 batches to get this semi-right.
Key: patience. Don't turn the heat up too high. Melinda's icing turns out more brown than mine. Not sure why? I found that if I continued to brown the butter, it burnt. So, mine has little flecks of brown in it, instead of being brown all the way through.
Note to me: This is not difficult, unless you are me, and you make it difficult.
5. Once you start baking, you need to make the icing, so it will be ready when the cookies come out of the oven.
6. These cookies freeze well (yes, before and after frosted).
7. My modifications: Melinda's recipe calls for 3 eggs. I like my cookies a little more on the dense side, so I reduced it to 2 eggs. Also, added some ground cloves for a little extra bit of flavor, and increased the baking temp to 375 for 8 minutes instead of 350, to give the cookies a little more crust on the outside but still soft inside.

10/21/10

New Index

APPETIZER AND DRINK


SALAD



Green Salads, Fruit Salads, Vegetable Salads and Dressings



Pasta, Potato and Grain Salads



Meat, Poultry and Main Dish Salads

SOUP


Biscuits, Scones, Donuts and Pastry




Muffins, Quickbread and Coffee Cake



Bread, Rolls and Sweet Yeasted Bread


Pancakes, Granola, French Toast, Waffles and Syrup


Egg and other Savory Breakfast Dishes
MAIN DISH





Meat: Beef and Wild Game


Pasta, Rice, Grain and Veggie





Pork and Poultry

SIDE DISH



Grain, Potatoes and Rice



Chutney, Jam, Marinades, Sauces and Spreads



Vegetable
DESSERT




Cake


Dessert Bars


Cookies




Brownies

Candy, Fruit Desserts and Ice Cream






Pie and Pastry