Ginger Biscuits

I made these for my husband, because ginger biscuits are his favourite. Since we have plenty of ginger in the cupboard now, I didn’t have to buy anything special for the recipe. The recipe is from a hand-written booklet produced by a local church that I bought for 25p. Three cheers for granny recipes!

The Recipe

4 oz margarine

1 Tbs Golden Syrup

pinch of baking soda

1 tsp ground ginger

3 oz sugar

6 oz self-raising flour

Method

Grease 1 or 2 baking trays and set oven to Gas 4 (that would be 180C/350F). Melt together to syrup and margarine, then stir in the rest of the sifted ingredients. With wet hands (keep a bowl of water on the table) roll into balls the size of a large marble and place wide apart on the baking trays (they spread). Cook for about 15 minutes or until done.

My Alterations

Well, I didn’t have any self-raising flour, so I took a really lazy short cut and just upped the baking soda to a full teaspoon. It seems to have worked. I kept everything else the same; Americans can use corn syrup or light treacle, if you can get it. The taste won’t be exactly the same, but it will work just fine.

I didn’t sift the ingredients because again: lazy. The whole wet hands thing didn’t seem to matter much, but my fingers got a little bit sticky.

The Result

I mis-read the recipe a bit, and rolled the dough into small marble-sized balls rather than large ones, so I ended up with a ton of itsy bitsy biscuits. They were cute, though, and they cooked faster than 15 minutes; more like 8 or 9 minutes.

They came out lovely. I let them cool for a few minutes on the tray, so they were a bit crisp. Be careful not to overcook them, especially if you make them small.

The Verdict

These were great! They had just the right amount of gingery taste, and the texture was very similar to my husband’s favourite store-bought brand. My kids adored them and we all happily munched on them for our dessert. The recipe was easy to follow, and the biscuits were very attractive when baked. I love their cracked tops.

The Rating

5/5

Not only were they cute and bite-sized, they were very tasty. The recipe was easy, and I liked the fact that my adjustment of throwing in a bit of extra baking soda didn’t ruin anything. We’ll definitely be making these again!

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

After taking a break from baking for a few days, I was in the mood for cookies. Not to be confused with biscuits, cookies are large and (ideally) a bit chewy. The best place to look for a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe is, of course, Cookie Madness. In the end, I used a recipe that was posted by one of her readers in the comments section. Thanks for posting it, Heidi!

The Recipe

These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.

Makes 1-1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

2-1/8 cups bleached all-purpose flour (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1-1/2sticks), melted aand cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough�uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month

My Alterations

I used all the same amounts as listed for each ingredient, and added dark chocolate chips for the cookies themselves. I then halved the dough, adding a handful of coconut and white chocolate chips to one half of the dough, and leaving the other half as-is. The pictures above show the plain chocolate chip cookies on the left and the coconut, dark & white chocolate chip cookies on the right.

I did not do the formed dough thing to the cookies, partly because I couldn’t be bothered, and partly because the dough didn’t turn out the way I expected.

The Results

The dough was surprisingly soft and sticky. Perhaps it needed to be chilled before trying the formed dough thing in step 3, but I don’t know. I’m not a big cookie maker, so I’ve never heard of this method before. I always just scoop, dump and bake.

I made the cookies a bit larger than called for in the recipe, and they took about 10-12 minutes to bake at 180C (which was probably a bit too low). I let them cool on the pan, mostly, until I needed it again for the next batch. I made 12 coconut cookies and 6 regular ones, and froze the rest of the dough for another day.

The Verdict

These cookies are brilliant. The regular chocolate chip cookies were really rich, with a slightly crunchy outside and a lovely soft inside. The addition of white chocolate chips and coconut sent the cookie into WOW territory for me, and I couldn’t keep my mitts off of the dough before they were even baked. These cookies will not last long at all; the only reason they haven’t totally disappeared already is because I’m too full to eat them. I’ll try again in a few hours! I’m really happy I froze the rest of the dough because now I will have freshly baked cookies with minimum work.

The Rating

5/5

These cookies have an excellent flavour and texture. I’m very happy with this recipe and can’t wait to eat more.