OK, just so you know, when I first bit into one of these cookies, I loudly proclaimed it “the best cookie I ever made”! Now, I may have said that a few times before about cookies I have baked, but I still say, this recipe really produces one heck of delicious, very crisp cookie. And I happen to love crisp cookies. I also love chewy cookies, and soft cookies like my “Pink Cookies”. Which probably means that I am basically a cookie monster. (I’m fine with that BTW!) But more about this recipe, which is based on a recipe I found on the onceuponachef.com site. (A wonderful site that I visit often and know you too would appreciate.)  

Now, the main thing I changed was the shaping of these cookies. I am absolutely in love with refrigerator/ice box/rolled into a log in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator overnight, and sliced and baked the next day cookie recipes. Why? The answer is simple. I’m lazy. It is just plain easier to wrap the dough in plastic wrap, than to either roll it out and use cookies cutters, or even shape the dough into balls using ice cream scoops. And I almost always refrigerate cookie dough for several hours or overnight before baking them anyway. Which is not always part of the original instructions. (But should be!)

Which brings me to another thing I always do, even though the directions may differ. If the dough is to be rolled into balls, I use an ice cream scoop. And even if the recipe says to refrigerate the dough before shaping, I shape the balls and then place them in the refrigerator. I mean really, have you ever tried to shape cold dough? Either by hand using a spoon or with an ice cream scoop. What in the name of all things holy are some cooks who write out recipes thinking? Have they ever actually shaped a cookie from cold dough? Do they not realize how easy dough is to shape when it’s first made, and not at all easy to shape when it’s BLOODY COLD AND HARD? Idiotic! OK, I feel better now, having gotten that off my chest.

Anyway, if you too love crispy, very spicy ginger cookies, this is the recipe for you.

Well, that’s it for today. We will be taking a short holiday to Long Beach, Washington in the near future. So, I am busy preparing food to take along. (This cookie among other goodies.) There’s a full kitchen in the condo where we are staying, but I don’t want to spend all my time cooking. So, preparing some dishes ahead is always a good idea. Gives me more time to sit in front of the fire and read. Or play a board game with our dear friends Jim and Margo who are going along mainly to keep us out of trouble. Just kidding. We are too old to get in too much trouble – anymore! This will just be quality time spent with our dear friends.  

We are truly blessed to have so many wonderful friends. And to have family members that we absolutely adore. Can’t get much better than that! May you too be as lucky.

And as always, love and peace to all.

2⅓ c. unbleached all-purpose flour, fluffed

2 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. kosher salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground allspice

¼ tsp. ground cloves

⅛ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

½ c. finely chopped candied ginger

¾ c. (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temp.

¼ c. plus 2 T. granulated sugar

¼ c. plus 2 T. packed light brown sugar

1 egg

⅓ c. molasses (not blackstrap or sulfured)

raw, turbinado, or demerara sugar, for rolling cookies

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and black pepper together in a small mixing bowl. Stir in the candied ginger making certain every little piece is covered in flour.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and molasses. (Be sure to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl several times during this process.) Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix just until combined.

Divide the dough roughly in half. Place each piece of dough on a long piece of plastic wrap. Shape the dough into a round log about 1½-inches wide. Sprinkle raw sugar over and around the dough. Using your hands, wrap the dough into the plastic wrap still working to evenly shape the dough into a log. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Remove from fridge and un-wrap logs. Using a sharp, thin bladed knife, slice dough ½-inch thick. (If the slices aren’t round or bits of candied ginger are sticking out here and there, just reform gently with your hands.) Arrange slices, at least 2-inches apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven until lightly golden on the bottom and around the edges, 14-16 minutes. (Do not under-bake this cookie.)

Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets 1 to 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.   

Well, this is just another experiment with gluten. And although I have made at least a million cookies over the several decades I have been allowed to use an oven without supervision, this recipe for ginger cookies is just enough different from my other ginger cookie recipes to make it worthy of sharing with you. Because these cookies come out flat and very chewy rather than what my other recipes tend to produce. And sometimes, a thin and chewy cookie is exactly what I am craving.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, these cookies are amazingly delicious. And easy to build. And very easy to eat. Too easy if truth be known.

Now you may be wondering what makes the flavor of these cookies any different than any other delectable ginger cookie. Well, I’ll tell you. They have little bits of candied ginger in the mix. And more spice is used than in most ginger cookie recipes. Which results in a cookie that is an absolute treat for anyone with a sophisticated palate. But if you are not a true connoisseur of ginger cookies, then don’t bother with this recipe. They might be a bit too flavorful for your liking. And I seriously doubt if a small child would appreciate the wonderful qualities of these babies. They might prefer a peanut butter cookie, for example.

But for an adult who might think a ginger cookie would go well with a nice glass of zinfandel or a lovely glass of Scotch, you will have found a pairing made in heaven. These cookies are the bomb!

Well, it’s only 3:30 pm here on Camano Island. But it’s suddenly gotten quite dark outside. And I’ve seen some lightning and heard a bit of rumble, and the lights just flickered. Oh, and it’s beginning to rain. No, scratch that. It is pouring buckets. (Which we need, so no complaints.) I do believe we are in for a bit of a storm.

So, I will leave you for today. I’m thinking Italian Chicken Pastina Soup for dinner. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all!

And as always, peace and love to all.

¾ c. (1½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes 

½ c. + 2 T. granulated sugar, divided

½ c. brown sugar, packed 

1 lg. egg

¼ c. molasses (not blackstrap)

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, fluffed

2 T. cake flour, fluffed (or additional all-purpose flour) 

2 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. coarse sea salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

2 tsp. + 1 tsp. cinnamon, divided

½ tsp. cloves

¼ tsp. nutmeg

⅓ c. finely chopped candied ginger  

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the cold butter, half cup granulated sugar, and brown sugar together until well combined. Beat in egg and molasses.

Whisk the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg together in mixing bowl.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture mixing until fully combined. Then, add the candied ginger, mixing just until incorporated.

Mix the remaining 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and the remaining 1 teaspoon of cinnamon together in a small bowl.    

Using an ice cream scoop (your choice for size), form balls and dip top into sugar/cinnamon mixture. Place sugar topped side up on a small parchment paper lined baking sheet close together and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. (Better overnight.)

When ready to bake, cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Place cold dough balls, sugar side up, about 1½ inches apart. Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes or until you start to see some slight cracks on top. Do not overbake.

Remove from oven and let cookies sit undisturbed for 3-5 minutes. Then, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container.  If you don’t end up baking all your cookies at once, place your scooped and sugar-topped extras in the freezer. Then bake them off when you are darned good and ready!   

Sometimes you just get thwarted when you go to the grocery store. And this happened to me when I decided to make my Peanut M&M Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (recipe on site) for an upcoming trailer trip. My very own local grocery store had the audacity to be out of Peanut M&Ms! How could this happen? To me! But it did. So, I bought a 9-oz. “share size” package of Peanut Butter M&Ms thinking I could probably think up a cookie recipe that included this “new to me” M&M varietal. And in case you haven’t shopped for any M&Ms lately, there’s a whole new world of possible flavors out there from which to choose. (I really do have to get out more!)

So, when I got home and opened the bag, I found the Peanut Butter M&Ms to be just a little bit bigger than the regular old-fashioned M&Ms of my youth. And instead of being candy coated chocolate, they were filled with peanut butter. Pretty darn tasty if truth be known. And there had been other varieties I could have brought home with me. Now my interest was piqued. So, when I got home, I went online and did a little research on M&Ms.

M&Ms have been around since 1941. And presently, there are 60 flavors on the market. (I thought there were only two. Regular and peanut M&Ms.) Some of the varieties are only offered for holidays. And to my thinking, some of the flavors look pretty scary. But as they say, to each his/her own! But M&M Cookies & Screeem, M&M Pumpkin Spice Latte, and M&M White Chocolate Candy Corn, I would simply have to say – no thank you! But back to this recipe.

Since I had already pulled my recipe for the Peanut M&M cookies from my file, I decided to start with that recipe, and see what I could come up with. So, what you find below is certainly similar to my original recipe but with enough kinks to be interesting and delicious on its own. I hope you enjoy this recipe for really peanutty cookies.

And as always peace and love to all.  

½ c. rolled or quick oats 

½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

½ c. brown sugar, packed

¼ c. granulated sugar

¾ c. crunchy peanut butter (not natural) (creamy unnatural peanut butter is fine too)

1 lg. egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1¼ c. unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. kosher salt

1¼ c. peanut butter M&Ms (I use the 9-oz. share size for this recipe)

½ c. roasted and salted peanuts

If using regular rolled oats, place in a food processor. Pulse a few times to break the oats down a bit. Set aside. (If using quick oats, they don’t have to be messed with at all. But they still need to be set aside at this point.)

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter and mix together. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and oats together. Add to the wet mixture just until incorporated. Do not overmix. Gently mix in the M&Ms and peanuts.  

Form the dough into about 2-inch diameter balls. (I use my #30 ice cream scoop to form the balls.) Place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet close together. (They are going to spend the night in your refrigerator, so at this point they can cozy up to one another.) Just before baking, place them on a large parchment paper lined sheet about 1½ inches apart.  

Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for about 16 minutes total. I took the pan out of the oven at about 8 minutes baking time and took a small glass and flattened the cookies a bit before placing them back in the oven. So, you will want to adjust your baking time to accommodate the time the cookies are out of your oven. The cookies will be a bit soft and look slightly undone. But don’t fret. They will firm up nicely as they cool. And you don’t want to overbake these cookies.

Remove from oven and allow to cool a couple minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Makes about 25 good sized cookies.

OK, my first batch of these cookies were very tasty but so moist they literally fell apart. But after doing a bit of research, I changed the recipe based on oatmeal cookie recipes I had made in the past. But one thing for sure about these cookies is that they are freaking delicious! The warm spices combined with the tart rhubarb and the sweetness provided by the sugars and white chocolate chips is terrific. But keep in mind, these are still going to be very moist cookies and therefore not the best choice for packing in a container and sending off to family or friends. Oh, they would love the box of crumbs I’m sure, but you would definitely loose points for presentation.

But for an afternoon cookie with coffee or tea or a mid-morning or late-night tasty treat, these cookies fit the bill.

Now I’m not going to tout these as being healthy cookies. They have way too much sugar and white chocolate in them to get away with having even a passing glance at being considered healthy. Even if they are prepared with whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, and rhubarb (a vegetable BTW). And don’t forget the walnuts which contain polyunsaturated fats and high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids which studies have shown can help lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol in particular, but also lower our cholesterol overall. So, these cookies obviously have some redeeming qualities. Besides of course, being yummy.

And it is rhubarb season. There’s always that to consider. And when aren’t oatmeal cookies in vogue? Never!

So, please give this cookie recipe a try. And even if someone in your family professes to hate rhubarb, this could be the recipe that changes their mind. These cookies are just that good.

And as always, peace and love to all. (And for those of you who do not appreciate rhubarb, you have my deepest sympathy!)  

½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.

¾ c. brown sugar

½ c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1½ tsp. vanilla extract

1¾ c. whole wheat pastry flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

¾ tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. fine sea salt

3 c. old-fashioned rolled oats  

3 c. very finely chopped rhubarb

1½ c. white chocolate chips (I use Callebaut 28% Cacao White Chocolate Callets) 

1½ c. chopped walnuts  

Cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until well combined.

Whisk the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, sea salt, and oats together. Add to butter mixture.

Stir in the finely chopped rhubarb, white chocolate chips, and walnuts. Using a   small ice cream scoop (I use a #40 1½ tablespoon orchid handled ice cream scoop), drop balls of dough close together on a parchment paper lined baking pan that will fit in your refrigerator. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but overnight is best.

Before baking, place dough balls at least 2-inches apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet just before popping in the oven.

Bake in a per-heated 375-degree oven for 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

These cookies freeze very well.