Recipe- Soft Ginger Cookies.

Ginger Cookies.

I love a good ginger cookie with my tea. However I don’t much care for super hard ginger snaps. I discovered a ginger cookie at one of the local bakeries that was almost perfect, but I didn’t feel like paying for ginger cookies when I should be able to make them myself. Took me four attempts, but I finally got ‘em right. Here’s the recipe:

Soft Ginger Cookies

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)

½ cup cannola oil

½ cup applesauce

½ cup dark unsulfered molasses

1 ¼ cup superfine sugar

2 eggs

1½ tsp vanilla

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp Kosher salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. cloves

3 generous tsp. ground ginger

coarse raw sugar

In mixer – Beat together butter, oil, molasses, applesauce, vanilla and sugar. Beat until thoroughly mixed and then beat some more. Make it nice and airy.

Mix together baking soda, salt and spices and add to butter mixture.

Beat in eggs.

Gradually add flour, mixing well after each addition but do not overbeat – overbeating can make tough cookies.

Cover mixing bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for at least an hour. Overnight is fine.

Remove dough from fridge. Preheat oven to 350’. Scoop out cookies with a large soup spoon or an ice cream scoop if you want big cookies. Use your hands to roll into soft balls.

Drop each cookie ball into a bowl of raw sugar. Roll around until covered on all surfaces. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving lots of space between cookies. One of my normal cookie sheets held only 6 large cookies. Flatten each cookie a little bit with two fingers. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the cookies are a rich golden brown.

Yummy!