Status: Alpha

Makes: around 100 cookies

Takes: about 9 hours start to finish, about 20m active work

These cookies come out small, which is good, because it’s hard to stop eating them. That’s why I only bake half a batch at a time.

Sorghum syrup may not be a thing where you live. You can try substituting molasses or date syrup. (I haven’t tried either.)

This recipe is derived from several online recipes, with a particular influence from Rebecca Blackwell’s recipe.

Ingredients

Base:

• 126g (slightly more than a 4oz stick) unsalted butter, room temp
• 200g dark brown sugar

Dough, wet ingredients (can collect in a small bowl):

• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 48g / 3 Tbsp sorghum syrup

Dough, dry ingredients (can collect in a medium bowl):

• 180g AP flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt
• 6g grated ginger (about a 1 inch piece)
• 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp ground korentje cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground clove
• 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper (ideally fresh ground)

Coating (not needed until baking):

• 1/2 C turbinado sugar
• 2 tsp ground korentje cinnamon

Procedure

Prep:

• Warm the butter if you haven’t.
• Grate the ginger and nutmeg, grind the pepper.

Dough:

• Put the butter and brown sugar into the mixer bowl. Cream using the paddle attachment on high speed, ~4 minutes.
• Add the wet ingredients and beat just long enough to mix, maybe 30 seconds.
• Put the dry ingredients in a medium bowl (if you haven’t already) and combine thoroughly using a spatula or whisk.
• Add the dry ingredients to the mixer in thirds, beating on low speed to combine. Don’t overmix! We don’t want the gluten.
• Cover the dough with plastic wrap (or a lid, if your bowl has one) and refrigerate for 8 hours.

At this point, I freeze half the dough for another time, because 100 cookies is far too many cookies, and I only have so many half sheet pans. To freeze, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap or a ziploc. To use the frozen dough, allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight.

Baking (half batch - full batch may take two trips):

• Set oven rack to middle.
• Start oven preheating to 350F.
• Cover two half sheet pans with parchment paper.
• Combine Coating ingredients in a small bowl, mix thoroughly.
• Remove dough from fridge, handling minimally to keep it cold.
• For each cookie (there are about 50 in a half batch):
  • Pull off a bit of dough and roll it between your palms into a ball. Aim for just shy of 1 inch / about 2 cm. (If you have a hemispherical 1/2 tsp measure, the ball should just sit in its cup.)
  • Roll the ball in the bowl of coating to coat all sides thoroughly.
  • Place on the parchment covered half sheet, allowing about 1.5 inch / 3 cm between each cookie for spread. In practice this means you can get 25-30 onto a halfsheet.
• Place one sheet at a time on center rack, or if you can fit both half sheets side by side (you have a 36“ oven, say), you can do that. Set a timer for 8 minutes.
• While the cookies are baking, set up two half-sheet’s worth of wire cooling rack. (Or not, if your sheet pans are very thin and will cool quickly.)
• Once the 8 minute timer goes off, check the cookies. They should be puffy and slightly cracked but not substantially darkened – darkening means overbake.
• Once the cookies are done, transfer the parchment to the cooling racks (or, again, don’t, if your pans are thin). Cookies will be very floppy when first pulled but will harden over the first 5-10 minutes.