No doubt about it, these are our favourite cookies!
They’re nice and ginger-y and come with a spicy kick, thanks to the freshly ground pepper they contain. I’ve shared them with quite a few others and everyone has really liked them, so you and your people will probably enjoy them too!
The recipe makes about 40 cookies which is more than we usually need at once, so I like to bake a dozen as “drop cookies” (pictured above) when I first make the dough and then save the rest in the freezer, shaped into two tubes which we just slice and bake whenever the desire for fresh cookies strikes. Or, you can make even more dough to store in the freezer by doubling the recipe.
Note that the dough spreads out as it bakes, so make your tubes smaller than you’d like your finished cookies to be, and leave space between them on the baking sheet.
The last time I made the dough it was just before Valentine’s Day, so I formed one tube into a heart shape before freezing it. But, that step is optional — they’re just as tasty in a plain old round shape! If you do choose to make them heart-shaped, make the dough the day before you bake them, and then store then in the freezer overnight, so that they’ll hold their shape when you cut them.
↑ tube of cookie dough, which can be frozen like this, for round cookies ↑
OR
↑ shape the tube into a heart shape, lengthwise (see how to do this within recipe below). ↑
Wrapped/sealed in plastic, the wax-paper tubes of dough can sit in the freezer for quite some time.
Topping them with a sprinkle of raw cane sugar added a bit of sparkle and a nice texture.
Makes around 40 small cookies
Ginger Cookies with a Spicy Kick
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, softened/room temperature
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 3/4 cup flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (optional)
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- About 1 teaspoon of raw sugar to sprinkle over top (optional, but these sugar crystals add a nice texture to the cookies)
- Note : Recipe can be doubled by doubling each ingredient. It’s nice to have a spare tube of them in the freezer, ready to bake whenever fresh cookies are desired!
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (if baking some right away).
In a large bowl, with an electric beater, mix butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 1 minute). Add egg and molasses and blend well.
In a second bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, spices and salt (I pass these dry ingredients through a sieve into the bowl to get out any lumps). Mix together well.
Add about half the dry ingredients to wet and mix together with a wooden spoon or your (clean) hands, unless you have a very powerful electric beater. Add remainder of dry ingredients and mix together until all is blended.
Place a piece of parchment paper on a cookie pan or butter the pan well, and drop small mounds of dough onto it, 1 to 2 teaspoons each. Leave room between them, as they will spread as they bake.
Sprinkle each with a bit of raw sugar.
Bake for 9-10 minutes. They may seem very soft and under-baked when you remove them from the oven but they will firm up as they cool.
Dough keeps well in the freezer, so bake as many as you want and leave the rest in there for another time.
To freeze the remainder of the dough :
Lay a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap on a clean surface, and transfer 1/2 of dough (or 1/3 if you want smaller cookies). Press into log shape and roll in wax paper, to get a nice smooth cylinder. Squeezing/twisting the ends of the waxed paper from both ends, helps to make a tight roll. Repeat with remaining dough.
If you want round cookies, skip the next step.
If you want heart shaped cookies, mold them now, by pressing the rolls down to make one flat side. Turn it over and press down again to make the second flat side, meeting in a point – that’s the bottom part of the heart. To make the top curved parts of the heart, use the back side of a knife to make a grove, running along the length of the cylinder. Then shape the parts on either side of the grove to make a heart.
Wrap tubes of dough well, within a plastic bag, and freeze them for a couple of hours or longer. When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, making sure rack is in the centre of the oven.
Unwrap and slice frozen tubes into cookies, about 1/4 of an inch thick. Place on a piece or parchment paper covered baking sheet (or skip the parchment and place directly on lightly greased baking sheet.). Bake as described above.
Baked cookies keep for a few days, sealed in an airtight container.
Description
Ginger cookies
Ingredients part 2
Instructions part 2
Description part 2
Ingredients part 3
Instructions part 3
Description part 3
Ingredients part 4
Instructions part 4
Description part 4
Hope you try making some yourself!
xo loulou
