Gingery Maple Thins

Traditionally I did the bulk of my cookie baking the last day the kids were in school before Christmas. I found this greatly increased my yield as more dough was made into cookies rather than getting popped into the mouths of helping elves. My husband was usually out shopping that day so it meant less taste testing if you know what I mean. Times have changed but I still like the house to myself when baking cookies. The Tuesday of this Christmas week I went a bit wild with cookies making 12½ dozen peanut butter cookies, 7 dozen shortbread cookies and a new cookie called gingery maple thins. The new recipe only made 22 cookies but with a bit of tweaking this will become a holiday favourite.

Crystalized Ginger

There's just something warm and comforting about the aromatic smell of ginger! It beckons Ginger just goes hand in hand with the holiday season. But ginger is not just a pretty face. Ginger is a wonderful natural remedy for nausea. This recipe called for crystalized ginger.

Crystalized ginger is peeled ginger root that has been briefly cooked in a light syrup then dried. The dried ginger is then lightly coated in sugar and stored until use. It can be used as is for medicinal or culinary purposed. Pictured to the left is whole crystalized ginger pieces. The recipe called for minced crystalized ginger so I simply chopped the pieces very fine (arrow).

Gingery Maple Thins

Glancing through the newest edition of Cook's Country I noticed the Holiday Cookie Contest with a runner-up entry by Diane Nemitz of Ludington, Michigan. Her cookie recipe definitely said holiday cookies to me so I decided to try it. What is nice about this recipe is there is no salt added. I have to tell you this dough is quite sticky to work with so I modified the method to chill the dough slightly similar to when I make peanut butter cookies. Chilling serves two purposes. First it makes it easier to work with the dough and second it helps control the spread of the cookie.

The recipe said to make the dough balls 1½-inch which I did but that really is too big. The next time I will reduce the dough size to 1-inch. Aside of that the cookies looked quite lovely with a nice golden colour, a soft, chewy texture and pleasant gingery flavour. I think they are going to be a huge hit!

Gingery Maple Thins
source: Cook's Country, December/January 2010. Pp. 5

1½ c unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ c softened butter
½ c packed brown sugar
1 large egg
¼c plus 1 tsp 100% pure maple syrup
3 tbsp minced crystalized ginger

¼ c granulated sugar

Cream the sugar and butter. Mix in the egg and maple syrup Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir the crystalized ginger into the sugar mixture then mix in the dry ingredients blending well. Chill dough 1 hour. Roll into balls then roll the balls into granulated sugar. Place balls on Silpat® lined cookie sheet. Flatten with bottom of glass. Bake at 160ºC/325ºF convection until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to complete cooling.