I am of the belief that you can never have too many ginger cookie recipes, so when I saw this recipe in our local newspaper, I decided to give it a go. The recipe is from the Nines Hotel in downtown Portland, OR. The hotel itself is, in my opinion, not very Portland, but they do have pretty incredible desserts.
These cookies are keepers. When I first made them, I felt a little ambivalent, since you have to roll out the cookie dough. I am lazy, so I do prefer the scoop-and-plop method. Rolling out dough is so involved, then flour gets all over the place, and you have so many more utensils and such to wash. But, it is worth it for these cookies! They are chewy and soft and very, very spicy. Some tasters aren’t huge icing fans (I know, why am I friends with them? I ask myself that all the time), so they preferred the drizzled ones. Me, I am all about the icing from edge to edge.
You can find the recipe here. Please note that they are total spreaders, so leave lots of space between the dough if you don’t want them to run together.
I’ve been making giant cookies for birthday cakes and this looks like a good candidate (I usually place divide the dough between two 9″ round pans and put frosting or whoopie pie filling between the layers).
Amen sister! There’s nothing like a good ginger/molasses cookie. I’m right there with you on the rolling (blech!) but I’ll give these a try. I made it through a multi-layer chocolate peanut butter oreo dessert for the hubby that involved about 3 dozen utensils, bowls and spatulas…I can roll out some darn cookie dough for me!
MMMMMM!!! I can’t wait to try these! They look so good! Really dark colored for being ginger cookies… maybe I just don’t have much experience with them! I’d definitely be interested in finding ways to add some flavor to the glaze. Any suggestions?
~Nancy Lewis~
Mmm, spicy! I have a tiny kitchen with one narrow counter, so I generally avoid roll-out cookie dough, too. (For pie, I’m willing to roll. For cookies? Meh.)
A trick that sometimes-but-not-always comes in handy for roll-out cookies: I add an extra spoon of flour (not much — the tiny amount I’d sprinkle on in the rolling process), mix them up, and shape them into a log of dough. Then I chill it for a nice long time and either slice them with a sharp knife or cut them by drawing a piece of floss around like tiiiiiiny garotte. Then position and back as usual.
Some cookies really are too delicate to treat this way, but for a lot of doughs, it works fine! And the log of dough will generally keep in the freezer, tightly sealed, so you can bake off just one tray of cookies at a time while dinner is cooking along with them.