Glorious Ginger Crinkle Cookies

See update at bottom of this post!

I like my ginger cookies hot.  Not as in right out of the oven, but spicy hot.  Most American recipes tone down the ginger to the point it’s merely hinted at.  My quest is to make these babies ever spicier. 

If you can make your own candied ginger, these will be even more glorious.  Making your own is most definitely worth your time.  So much better than storebought!  On the other hand, storebought candied ginger is better than none.

I also have a strange thing about tasting white flour in a cookie.  I don’t like it.  Yet even my most stridently healthy cookbooks advise me to use half white flour.  Why?  Whole wheat is healthier and more substantial.  It works especially well in these soft, chewy ginger crinkles.

This recipe makes about three dozen cookies, and it takes about thirty minutes to prepare, and ten to bake.  Leave them at least ten minutes before you start to gobble.  Wouldn’t want to burn your tongue with the wrong kind of heat.

Home made candied ginger is so much better!

¾ cup butter, softened

1 cup jaggery, or brown sugar

1 teaspoon canola oil

¼ cup molasses

1 egg

2 tablespoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 green cardamom pods, husked and ground to a powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups whole wheat flour

½ cup minced candied ginger, not too fine

3 tablespoons raw sugar crystals (maybe a bit more)  

The first move is to whip the butter.  Put in a mixer bowl and turn on to high speed till the butter becomes fluffy, and a slightly more pale colour.  My kitchen was on the cold side, so I rinsed out the mixer bowl in warming water, drying the bowl well.  Even so, this process took the most time.  I had to push the butter down into the well with a spatula many times over.  It’s frigidly cold here right now, which is why I need these spicy cookies.

Leave room for them to spread out.

Add the jaggery, and keep beating till the butter and sugar become fluffy and a lighter colour.  Grease a measuring cup with canola oil, then pour the molasses into that.  The canola will move the molasses out nicely, and a bit of extra oil always helps a cookie.  Add to butter and sugar, beating till well mixed.  Use your spatula from time to time to be sure all ingredients are well combined. 

Add the egg and continue to beat, till well mixed.  Turn off the mixer and add ground ginger, cinnamon and ground cardamom.  If you have a few grains of cardamom powder left in your mortar, be happy.  Reserve it for later. 

I like the coarse salt in this recipe, because it gives little pops of flavour, but you can use regular salt if you’re not as frantic for this new salt trend as I am.  Add whichever salt you desire, along with the baking powder and then the flour.  Turn the mixer on to slow, and incorporate the ingredients.  Once it’s mostly mixed in, turn the mixer to a higher speed to make sure mixture is smooth.  Stop the mixer again and add the candied ginger, mixing again just to incorporate that.  

Turn oven on to 375F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Add about a half teaspoon of the raw sugar crystals to your mortar, then grind it up just enough to grab every remaining cardamom molecule.  Brush into a small bowl, along with the rest of the raw sugar crystals.  If your candied ginger has loose sugar, add that to the bowl too. 

These sugar crystals are fabulous!

My kitchen was cold, so this worked for me.  If yours isn’t, you might want to chill that dough for an hour or so.  I simply grabbed a ball’s worth, rolled it in my palms, then into the crystallized sugar, then placed onto the cookie sheet.  Be careful to keep them the same size, so they cook evenly.  By the time I was finished with the rolling and placement, the oven was ready.

Bake these for less than ten minutes.  If you like them especially chewy, you can dare to go for seven minutes, but keep an eye.  The longer they cook the less chewy and drier they become.  

Ginger Crinkle Cookies and milk.  Ginger Crinkle Cookies and chai.  Ginger Crinkle Cookies and gluhvein…  Oh, these will gloriously warm your soul. As the wind chills take us down to minus thirty-eight C, we need everything we can find to warm up.  Do I dare add more ginger next time?  Do you?  Let me know…

Update:  I made these again yesterday, and gilded the lily.  I added half a cup of dark chocolate chips to the batter.  Oh, my oh my...  December 12, 2013

Yummmmmm!