Recipe: Chewy Triple-Ginger Chocolate Cookies

Once upon a time, in our early dating days, my husband and I rented a car and took an adorable little day trip to go apple-picking in the country. We were in that flirty, wooing stage of our courtship, and I decided to try to impress him with a batch of homemade cookies for the drive.

I’d learned he was partial to a chewy cookie, but I wanted to make something sort of out-of-the-box. Standard-issue chocolate chip cookies, while never a bad choice, were just too pedestrian for the impact I wanted to make. After all, I was still trying to snag this guy!

I ended up finding a version of this recipe somewhere on the internet and thought it would be perfect: sweet, spicy, and interesting enough to be memorable. I tweaked it quite a bit to include chopped crystallized ginger, in addition to the ground and fresh ginger, a heftier dose of chocolate, and a crunchy coating of turbinado sugar.

In the end, triple the ginger, double the chocolate  . . .  slam-dunk! So to all the single ladies and gentlemen out there, while I can’t say for sure that these were the cookies that sealed the deal, my husband still remembers eating them in the car that day and asks me to make them often. If you’ve got your eye on someone special, these beauties are probably worth a try.

Ingredients (makes about 3 dozen)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
8 oz. good-quality dark chocolate, chopped into 1/4-inch chunks
8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 tbsp. peeled and grated fresh ginger
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
2 large eggs
1/3 cup coarsely chopped crystalized ginger
1/3 cup turbinado sugar, or another coarse sugar, for coating cookies

Instructions

1. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl, and set aside.

2. Melt 4 oz. of the chopped chocolate with the butter in a small heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, or microwave in 30-second intervals on high until melted.

3. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl to use with a handheld mixer, or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the fresh ginger, brown sugar, molasses, and eggs, and mix until combined. Gradually mix in the flour mixture. Fold in the remaining chocolate chunks and crystallized ginger. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

4. Scoop the dough into 1/2-inch balls, and place 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Refrigerate for 20 minutes, then roll in turbinado sugar. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F.

5. Bake the cookies, rotating the pan at about the 6-minute point, until they flatten and their surfaces begin to crack, 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake! Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Serve and live happily ever after.

6. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

Looking for more sweet treats? Try this recipe for Vegan Macaroon.