After making Donna Hay's delicious Cardamom and Pistachio Caramels, I moved on to another recipe in her Modern Baking cookbook, the "Ginger Molasses Cookies." I've made a lot of ginger and molasses cookies in my time, but the photo of these cookies in the cookbook looked amazing. It's an extreme closeup of a stack of eight dark and elegantly thin cookies, with tempting chunks of sparkling crystallized ginger studded in the sides and the top cookie generously coated in a shower of coarse sugar.
The cookie dough comes together pretty quickly, although there is a lot of beating and a short chilling time required. You beat melted and cooled butter with light brown and granulated sugar for 6-8 minutes; add an egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; beat for 2 minutes; add baking powder and baking soda that have been dissolved in water (not sure what that's about), flour, ground ginger, fresh grated ginger, molasses, and salt; and fold in crystallized ginger. You chill the dough for 30-45 minutes to let it firm up slightly.
The recipe says that it yields 15 "large" cookies each made with 1/4 cup of dough. I followed the suggestion to make "regular-sized cookies" with only half as much dough; I used a #30 scoop (roughly two tablespoons) and got 27 cookies from a batch. I rolled the balls of dough in turbinado sugar before baking; the recipe says to use "coffee sugar" (which I take it is quite common in Australia) or Demerara, but turbinado was what I had on hand.
My cookies flattened out nicely during baking and were very thin. The cookies were round and consistent but they did not look anything like the cookbook photo. My cookies were a boring tawny shade and the chunks of crystallized ginger stayed hidden -- although they did create a few raised bumps in the cookies' otherwise slim profile. Most of the sugar coating was absorbed into the cookie, although you could still see grains of turbinado on the surface. The cookies in the cookbook are a rich mahogany brown, visibly bursting with crystallized ginger, and somehow have a lavish layer of coarse sugar just sitting on top.
While I was slightly disappointed by their lackluster appearance, the cookies tasted fantastic. They were super gingery due to the inclusion of ground ginger, fresh grated ginger, and crystallized ginger. The heat from the ginger lingered on the tongue. The cookies were super chewy (with a little crunch from the turbinado sugar coating) and I loved the texture. I would be delighted to make and eat these cookies again.
Recipe: "Ginger Molasses Cookies" from Modern Baking by Donna Hay.
Previous Posts:
The cookie dough comes together pretty quickly, although there is a lot of beating and a short chilling time required. You beat melted and cooled butter with light brown and granulated sugar for 6-8 minutes; add an egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; beat for 2 minutes; add baking powder and baking soda that have been dissolved in water (not sure what that's about), flour, ground ginger, fresh grated ginger, molasses, and salt; and fold in crystallized ginger. You chill the dough for 30-45 minutes to let it firm up slightly.
The recipe says that it yields 15 "large" cookies each made with 1/4 cup of dough. I followed the suggestion to make "regular-sized cookies" with only half as much dough; I used a #30 scoop (roughly two tablespoons) and got 27 cookies from a batch. I rolled the balls of dough in turbinado sugar before baking; the recipe says to use "coffee sugar" (which I take it is quite common in Australia) or Demerara, but turbinado was what I had on hand.
While I was slightly disappointed by their lackluster appearance, the cookies tasted fantastic. They were super gingery due to the inclusion of ground ginger, fresh grated ginger, and crystallized ginger. The heat from the ginger lingered on the tongue. The cookies were super chewy (with a little crunch from the turbinado sugar coating) and I loved the texture. I would be delighted to make and eat these cookies again.
Recipe: "Ginger Molasses Cookies" from Modern Baking by Donna Hay.
Previous Posts:
- "Good Enough for the Ivy League: Princeton Gingersnaps," November 21, 2016.
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Gingersnaps with Lemon Sugar," January 18, 2015.
- "The Means to a Delicious End: Gingersnaps and Sweet Potato Tart," December 18, 2014.
- "Cracks that Shine and Sparkle: Ginger Cracks," May 24, 2013.
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Joe Froggers," October 21, 2012.
- "This Cookie Can't Be Too Thin or Too Rich: Milk's Molasses Cookies," February 5, 2012.
- "Hello Gorgeous! [Molasses Crinkles]," September 25, 2008.
- "A Mid-Week Baking Binge [White Lily Gingersnaps]," August 14, 2008.
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