Chocolate and crystallized ginger combine to update this classic favorite.
Ingredients
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup instant-dissolving sugar (also known as fruit/berry sugar or superfine sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
1 cup finely (or coarsely) chopped crystallized ginger (see notes *)
Directions
- In a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot (not boiling) water, melt chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool.
- Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Stir in chocolate and vanilla. Add flour and salt; stir until blended. Mix in chopped crystallized ginger.
- Divide into 4 equal parts, wrap in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours or until firm.
- Preheat oven to 300 F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Turn onto lightly floured work surface and roll out to 1/4″ thickness. Cut with cookie cutters and place cookies on prepared baking sheets.
- Bake 30 minutes or until firm to the touch (if you used small cookie cutters, check doneness at around 20 minutes). Remove from oven and let cool for 2 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
- Yield depends on the size of your cookie cutters. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Notes
- * if your ginger is not chopped fine enough, it may be harder to cut out with the cookie cutters. That said, you can get a nice burst of ginger flavor biting into a larger chunk of ginger, but knowing that this can make using the cookie cutter more difficult, try to cut around these chunks of you decide to chop more coarsely.
- * If your ginger is very hard, soften it with a bit of hot water first, then chop it, but allow it to dry before using in the recipe.
- I saw this recipe on an episode of the Canadian Living Cooks TV show back in the early 2000s. The recipe cannot be found on their website so I am so glad I jotted it down!