Hip hip hooray!
I’m talking cheer for ginger cookies. They once were hard as a rock, but now they’re soft again and kissed with Christmas cheer. Cheer as in brandy. Definitely worth cheering about, especially with the holidays right around the corner.
Here’s what happened: I was making a wonderful ginger cookie recipe from Emily Lucchetti. I bought her Stars Desserts book ages ago and have made her ginger cookies countless times. What I like best about them, aside from the spicy-sweet flavors of ginger, cinnamon, allspice and molasses, is the texture. Crispy outside, tender inside. Hard to go wrong, really.
Well…it’s not so very hard. The trick with keeping the crisp-tender texture is to under bake them. (I make these mini sized, and only 5 minutes in the oven is the perfect timing.) Unfortunately, I left the first two trays in a few minutes too long; once they cooled, they hardened up like little lumps of gingery coal.
But they weren’t lost for good. Here’s the trick: A tablespoon of brandy sprinkled on a paper towel, then left overnight on top of the hard cookies in an airtight container. The next morning they were lovely and soft again, with a hint of brandy flavor too. Resurrected. So happy. And I’ve only eaten 3 before breakfast today.
What lovely ginger cookies. I’ve seen flat ones but these look like little bundles of ginger goodness.
Thanks so much, Maureen! You nailed it — these are lovely gingery bites. Great for this time of year.