recipe

Best ever crispy and chewy ginger cookies

ginger cookie

A few weeks ago, I picked up a book at the library: Cookies – 200 Favorite Recipes (by Fine Cooking). It has 6 different variations of a ginger cookie, with different textures and spice profiles! So I picked one, modified it and got fabulous results. I like to replace “regular flour” in ginger cookies with rye flour. It is more nutritious, its flavor pairs well with molasses and it has a somewhat chewy texture. The fine layer of sugar on top of the cookies makes them crunchy on the outside and hits the perfect sweet note.

Baking temperature: 350 °F
Baking time: 12-14 minutes for 1 tbsp size cookies (a.k.a. heaping teaspoon)

INGREDIENTS

DRY
2 1/4 cups rye flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
some grated nutmeg (I’m sensitive to nutmeg so I used about 1/8 tsp… I just put enough to smell it when I mixed it in)

WET
3/4 cup unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)
3/4 cup granulated sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
1 large egg (room temperature)
1/4 cup molasses
5 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger

SUGAR COATING
3 tbsp granulated sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350 °F.
  2. Put dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk (or fork) until well blended.
  3. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and molasses. Beat until smooth. Stir in finely chopped ginger.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Stir until well blended.
  5. Refrigerate cookie dough for 1 to 12 hours. This allows the flour to “moisturize”.
  6. Spread 3 tbsp of sugar in a plate. Make 1 tbsp sized balls of dough, flatten them (to about 1 cm thick) and press top of each cookie into the sugar.
  7. Put cookies on a baking sheet. Bake 12-14 minutes, until somewhat puffy and surface is dry, except for cracks which look a bit wet.
  8. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. I let my cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. Maybe some day I’ll try a cooling rack… or not.

The cookie dough freezes really well. I pre-form the cookies, sugar them and put them in a big rectangular glass storage container, separated by sheets of parchment paper. I put the frozen cookies on a baking sheet and add two minutes to the baking time.