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This year marks 8 years of me doing “12 days of holiday cookies” at work before our winter shutdown. It feels like I’ve been doing it for forever, but 8 years isn’t even half the age of the OG food blogs.
The most challenging year was certainly two years ago, when we were mid-construction and I didn’t have a kitchen. In a moment of brilliance, I’d purchased the Anova speed oven before we started even discussing a kitchen renovation, so I did have a small, slightly persnickety oven to bake in…. It was lack of counter-space and the fact that my KitchenAid was in the storage counter on our front “lawn” (aka dirt-packed patch) that caused complications for large-scale baking.
I spent a flour-dusted day at a friend’s parents’ house, using their kitchen to prep five different kinds of cookies for the coming week. I don’t remember what cookies we made aside from chocolate crinkles, but I do remember being immensely grateful to get out of the cramped quarters of our ADU & to bake in a real kitchen space… enough time has passed that I sometimes catch myself taking our new kitchen for granted, but then I remember what it was like before.
I love our new kitchen.
Anyways, back to the 12 days of cookies.
These chocolate ginger sugar cookies were published in Bake from Scratch Vol 3. I haven’t had the greatest success with recipes from the Bake from Scratch collection, but Sarah Kieffer’s recipes are always solid. Aside from the amount of cookie dough to use per cookie, which could not be right based on cookie time, I didn’t need to make any modifications.
These cookies come together in a flash, and they don't require any resting time.
Cream the butter & sugar together until "fluffy" or visibly lightened in color. Add an egg and vanilla, beat together again.
Sift the dry ingredients together and add them slowly with the mixer on.
Fold in the ginger bits & chocolate.
Very lightly adapted from Bake from Scratch Vol 3.
Chocolate Ginger Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter room temperature
- 2¼ cups (450 grams) granulated sugar divided into 1½ and ½
- 1 large (50 grams) egg room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (43 grams) Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder or any all natural cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 ounces (115 grams) mini semisweet chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
- ¼ cup (41 grams) chopped crystallized ginger
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375℉. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter for about a minute on medium speed until smooth. You may need to scrape down the bowl several times. Add 1¾ cups (350 grams) of the granulated sugar, and continue beating until fluffy, another 3-4 minutes.
- Scrape down mixing bowl to ensure all the butter and sugar are incorporated together. Add the egg and vanilla, then beat again at medium speed until combined.
- In a medium bowl, stir the flour, cocoa powder, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt together with a fork to aerate and combine.
- With the mixture running on the lowest speed, gradually add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl, then mix on low until just combined (about another 30-60 seconds).
- Place the remaining ½ cup (100 grams) of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. Using a standard cookie/ice cream scoop with a diameter of 1½ inches, form the dough into balls (about 37 grams each), then roll the dough ball in the sugar bowl to coat, and place 6 cookies no closer than 2 inches to each other on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
- Bake one pan of cookies at a time for about 11-13 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. The cookies are done when the centers are puffy and starting to crackle plus the edges are set.
- Let the baked cookies cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes before trying to transfer them, meanwhile bake a second pan if you have multiple cookie trays.
- Finished cookies will have cracked tops, be perfectly crunchy along the outside, and have a soft, chewy middle. They can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
