Gingerbread in a Soft (or Chewy!) Cookie: Chocolate Chip Molasses Ginger Cookies

I love ginger, and I have never understood why ginger-chocolate chip cookies are not more prevalent. The combination of ginger and chocolate is so good. Edd Kimber's "Chocolate Chip Molasses Ginger Cookies" looked delicious, but I was initially deterred by the text in the headnote describing these cookies as "soft." I interpreted that to mean "cakey," which is my least favorite cookie texture. But the headnote also says that "if you are one of those people that prefer a chewy gingerbread cookie you can use a 50/50 blend of plain and bread flours," so I decided to give that a go.

 

You start out by heating the butter with molasses and brown sugar (I used regular brown sugar instead of muscovado) until the butter melts and the sugar is dissolved; letting the mixture cool; and whisking in eggs. You combine the remaining ingredients (all-purpose flour, bread flour, baking soda, salt, freshly grated ginger, ground ginger, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg) in a separate bowl; mix in the melted butter-egg mixture; and stir in chocolate (I used Cacao Barry Guayaquil Extra Bitter 64% pistoles). I used a #24 scoop to portion out the dough and got 32 cookies from a batch. I chilled the cookies for a few hours before rolling them in demerara sugar and baking them.

My first pan of cookies hardly spread at all, so I flattened subsequent pans of cookies before baking, which helped a little. But my cookies looked nothing like the ones pictured with the recipe, which look like they spread quite a bit. As I was trying to diagnose the reason my cookies weren't spreading, it occurred to me that I might have made an error as I was making the batter. I made a double batch of these cookies very late at night. It's possible I forgot to double the amount of leavening. Regardless, my compact, fat cookies were quite tasty. They had the flavor of gingerbread spice, were chewy (not cakey!), and the dramatic crunch from the demerara sugar was fantastic. 

That said, I would have preferred if my cookies had turned out like the one's pictured on Edd's website. I may have to give this recipe another try when I am laser focused and can make sure that I don't make any mistakes!

 

Recipe: "Chocolate Chip Molasses Ginger Cookies" from Edd Kimber.