I hate to cast a negative vote among all the five-star ratings, but I thought the crystallized ginger in this recipe was too much! I like ginger, but biting into a small chunk of crystallized ginger gives the kind of hot sensation you get from eating Thai food--not exactly what I'm looking for in a cookie. Homemade treats usually disappear quickly at my office, but I couldn't find any takers for these overwhelming cookies. If I were to make these again, I'd definitely omit the crystallized ginger.
I have made this recipe twice in the last week. Wow! These cookies are good! Thank you, Laria.
I did modify the recipe the second time I made them. In the first batch I used butter and followed the recipe almost exactly. I used an entire jar of McCormick's crystallized ginger (about 2+ oz) ground in a food processor. Clearly that was much less than the 1/2 cup called for in the recipe, but at over $8/jar, who can afford that for a batch of cookies? I did not compensate with any extra fresh or powdered ginger but they still tasted very good. They did, however, come out flat and soft and those that survived my family for a few days got softer and stuck together as time went on.
For the second batch, I used Crisco butter-flavored shortening,and doubled the amount of fresh ginger and powdered ginger. When I tasted the uncooked batter I was worried that I had produced an inedible ginger kick-in-the-head but those cookies were incredible. The batter was much easier to work with--not sticky, it was easy to shape in uniform round balls that produced perfectly shaped round raised cookies with a cracked surface. Once baked, the cookies were crispy but not hard and intensely gingery without a bite.
I am writing this, my first review, to save myself from eating the rest of the cookies. Fortunately, I gave most of the batch away yesterday for a "ghosting."
These are fantastic!!! To make chopping the crystallized ginger easier I used my mini prep food processor--did a beautiful job in just a fraction of the time. Will make again and again.
Thanks for this delicious recipe - it was exactly what I wanted in a ginger cookie. If you keep your ginger root frozen you can grate it quickly without peeling it because the skin falls to the side as you grate. I reduced the baking powder to 1 1/2 tsp. to keep the saltiness down. If you like to add other spices to these cookies you should try cardamom or five-spice powder.
AMAZING! I wanted to ensure they would be crunchy and chewy so I added 1/4 c more butter and decreased baking soda to 1 1/2 tsp. Theese are the best Ginger cooies ever.
As much as I REALLY like ginger I made sure that I chopped the crystallized ginger into very small pieces. I really do think these are the BEST ginger cookies that I have EVER eaten and I'm almost 55 years old!!!
YUMMY!!! These are wonderful! The grocery store near me ran out of crystallized ginger (available in the baking aisle near the candied cherries for fruit cake). I ended up tripling (actually probably more than that) on ground ginger and grated fresh ginger. I also found ground wet ginger near the minced garlic and used 2 teaspoons of that as well. (I'm a HUGE ginger fan.) These came out soft moist and cake-like which I love. I can appreciate a crunchy cookie but I like my ginger cookies soft. Beautiful cookies! Will definitely make again. Though mine did stick to the cookie sheet. I will have to lightly grease it next time. Thanks Laria!
Dee-lish-us!!!The prep isn't bad for such a great product. I even rolled to cookie balls in turbinado sugar before baking (makes a great sweet crunch).
These were wonderful! Crispy outside soft and chewy inside and very very "gingery". My kids said they were the best cookies they've ever had. They don't spread much as they bake so you can place them fairly close together. Took only about 15 minutes to bake in my oven rather than the 20 suggested. A great recipe!!!
