Ginger goodness :D

Ok, as promised, I've been baking all week. (Ok perhaps slight exaggeration, but you know...lots of cooking in one night should count too :p). Friday this week rolls around, and as per usual, most of us had stayed out too late on Thursday, and didn't want to go anywhere on Friday. I fell back on my trusty plan B, head to someone's house for a night of cooking and movies, and maybe throw in a glass of wine there.

Friday night the venue was Charlotte's house. Optimal, because not only does she have a lovely large kitchen, and sound system for Moby to play around on ;), her two dogs Vicky and Bennie provided the perfect training tool for my new wonderdog "Sookie" (I'll have to blog about her too! lol). Sookie is a gorgeous Belgian/German Shepard cross, and now that she's gaining some weight, looks quite healthy. Looking at her, you'd think tough dog. That's the farthest from the truth though, Sookie is a huge "Fraidy cat." lol. I figured the over-excited antiques of Charlotte's "Dober-hund" Vicky would help quiet Sookie down around people. (Plan executed...plan 50 % success rate >.<) Anyhow, enough about the dogs. On to the recipe. On tonight's menu, we had Sparkling ginger cookies. Deliciously spicy, they are definitely a Christmas tasting cookie. Definitely a huge success on Friday. I found this recipe online, but made a few changes to it. Having already made these cookies, I think that coating them entirely in sugar takes too much away from the ginger flavour. Next time, I would only coat one side. :D The ingredients are as follows.

1/2 cup / 3.5 oz / 90 g Brown sugar
6 ounces / 170 g bittersweet chocolate (We forgot to get this at the store - haha - so substituted with regular chocolate chips - 3/4 a bag)
2 cups / 8.5 oz / 245 g whole wheat pastry flour ('m in Egypt...totally only used regular flour ;) )
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/2 cup / 4 oz / 113 g unsalted butter
1/4 cup / 2 oz / 60 ml unsulphured molasses (black honey)

2/3 cup / 3.75 oz / 100 g fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted

1 1/2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger, peeled (We didn't grab this either, so just used ground ginger again)
1 large egg, well beaten

We also added around 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, Moby is a cinnamon addict. :p


Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.



Whisk together the flour, ground ginger, baking soda and salt (and in my case, cinnamon). Set aside.
Heat the butter until it's just barely melted (ie. slightly more melted than "soft") and mix with brown sugar, molasses and fresh ginger. Whisk in the egg.

Pour this mixture over the flour. Stir until mixed.

Fold in the chocolate (I learned here that folding it in is important, if you "mix" it with your hands, the butter gets too warm and the mixture too sticky).


Now take your white sugar, and put it in a bowl. Scoop out small portions of the mixture (about a teaspoon full) and roll in your hands. Roll this mixture in the white sugar, and place on the cookie tray. - This is the part that makes the cookies really sweet, next time I won't coat the whole cookie, i.e. roll the whole thing. Instead, I would dip one side. Depends on how sweet you like your biscuits ;) )


Bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes, is what the original recipe called for. But, working on an Egyptian oven, is slightly different lol. We baked them for about 15 minutes. Once cool, grab a glass of milk, and enjoy!!!