Double Ginger Cookies

I got the original recipe for these from my Brother-in-law, Reed. It was for soft ginger bread cookies. I decided to jazz them up by adding in crystallized ginger in addition to the ground ginger already in the recipe. You could certainly omit my addition, or take it another step further by grating in some fresh ginger as well. These cookies are delicious! I made them as a Valentine's Day treat for the husband.

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinammon
4 oz. crystallized ginger pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup melted margarine
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 cup unsulfured molasses
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon lemon extract
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, lightly grease cookie sheets (or line with parchment paper)

In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, stir together all wet ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture one cup at a time, fully mixing each cup into the batter before adding the next cup. Mix until fully incorporated.

Once dough is smooth, roll dough to 1/4 inch thick on a floured surface and cut out cookies with the cookie cutter of your choice.

Place onto cookie sheets and bake 10 to 12 minutes (the cookies will spring back when gently touched when done).

Remove cookies from oven and cool on wire racks.




I know a lot of people that are turned off by the idea of roll out cookies. All the cutting, re-rolling, etc. If you are among them, you should still try these cookies just use a pizza cutter to easily cut your entire rolled out sheet of dough into cookie "sticks". These are extra snackable and great for dunking in milk!

Friday Food Craft: Perfect Pancakes

Food craft time again, and as I am trying to turn over a new leaf, it isn't dessert this time! Though, you could certainly add chocolate chips and make these pancakes more like dessert if you really wanted to, I won't judge. My husband actually makes these pancakes, aren't I lucky? We went all out this year for the holidays and put them into cookie cutters to make little gingerbread and mitten shapes, but they taste just as good without the trouble. If you do want to make cookie cutter pancakes, just make sure to use metal cutters so you don't melt them, and spray the cutters generously with cooking spray so you can get your shapes out in tact :)



To make these super yummy pancakes you will need:

1 cup All Purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 cup milk (you can use either regular milk or buttermilk, depending on your taste)
1 egg
2 Tablespoons fat of choice (we generally use melted butter, but have also tried coconut oil, canola oil, flax oil, etc. anything will do)

*Serves two hungry adults, double or triple recipe as needed.


Start by mixing all of your dry ingredients together in a bowl, so everything is mixed together. Set aside.

In separate bowl, mix all of your wet ingredients together, you will want all of these to be close in temperature (so you don't cook your egg with hot melted butter, or make your hot butter chunk up in cold milk, etc.).

Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Allow this to sit at room temp while you heat your griddle to medium heat, about 5 minutes.

Pour batter onto a greased griddle and cook until bubbles form all over the top of your pancakes, flip and cook until desired brownness is achieved.

Enjoy with toppings of your choice: butter, syrup, fresh fruit, etc.

Note: These also make fantastic blueberry pancakes, just add fresh blueberries (frozen also work, but the entire pancake typically turns blue, and fresh just taste so much better, so sadly I only have them in the Summer)