Ginger-Molasses Cookies
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Do you like spicy? Then this is the cookie for you! These cookies pack a lot of punch with fresh ginger, cardamom and black pepper. They're big soft cookies with tons of flavor and they're super delicious. I made them right before our Portland trip. Actually I made them to bring to Portland while visiting friends. Everyone liked them and I think you will too. The recipe is from The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee book, Jeff gave it to me for my birthday and I was so happy to see all kinds of new cookie recipes inside. The book is mainly about coffee, roasting, using the pour over method with a Chemex and being kind of a coffee snob as in "Cupping" which would be the equivalent of "tasting" in the wine world. There's a whole section on how to properly "cup" for various bean tastings. I had no idea people were doing this, but they are. And They say things like "Take a spoonful of coffee and slurp sharply. This aspirates coffee over your palate…" but then don't slurp too loudly! Really? ok. Like I said this is a whole new world for me.
We started roasting our own coffee recently, which isn't as hard or time consuming as might think, I'm going to do a post on the coffee roasting soon (and maybe some cupping and slurping!), I'm hoping before our move which is coming up quickly now. I'm back and forth between excitement and stress, moving has that way about it, but it's also cleansing, evaluating what's worth moving and what's not. And I probably need to get back to all that soon. Yikes! The recipe is below, oh and the recipe notes that you should use light molasses, not the darker molasses because that will overwhelm all the other spices and flavors. But these are great and I would definitely make them again! Enjoy!
Ginger-Molasses Cookies
(adapted from The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee )
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon natural (not Dutch-processed) cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon ground dried ginger
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon ground black cardamom*
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
- 3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling the cookies
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup unsulfured light molasses
*if you don't have black cardamom substitute 1/2 teaspoon ground clove and a 1/4 teaspoon ground green cardamom.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, powdered ginger, baking soda, cardamom and pepper into a bowl.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter and grated ginger on low speed (you can also do this by hand) 1-2 minutes until smooth. Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and mix until well combined. Mix on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add the molasses and mix until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl, add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until uniform in texture.
Scrape dough out into air tight container or plastic wrap, shape the dough into a rough disk, wrap tightly and refrigerate for 3 hours and up to 5 days.
Preheat oven to 350°, line baking sheet with parchment paper. Fill a small plate with sugar.
Roll 1/4-cup portions of the dough into balls, roll the balls into the sugar until thoroughly coated and place on baking sheet. Space them 2" apart. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until crackly on top but still somewhat soft. Let them cool on pan for 10 minutes and transfer to cooling rack. Can be stored in airtight container for 2 days at room temp.
Makes 9 large cookies
