Triple Ginger Cookies

The day finally arrived that I have been waiting for for several months. Ever since the cool days of spring burned into the heat of summer I have been dreaming of a whole houseful of tiny ginger cookies. Now that it is cool enough to bake again, it is time to break out the oven mitts.

Thank goodness I started the cookies as soon as I got home from lunch with a friend - otherwise my plans would have been ousted in favor of fixing apples and cabbage.

This is my favorite photo. The flour is on top, the crystallized ginger on the bottom left, and the fresh ginger in the measuring spoon. There is also powdered ginger which has already been mixed into the flour. There. Is. A. Lot. Of. Ginger. In. These. Puppies.

And they are oh so chewy and gingery. Yum. Double Yum. I almost went into sugar shock from just three tiny cookies. They are pure, unadulterated sugar.

Love at first sniff. Since it is my birthday, Kevin didn't even complain too much about the intensity of the ginger smell. He's such a great hubby.

Triple Ginger Cookies

1/2+ cup large-grain sugar (i.e. turbinado)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoons baking soda

4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2/3 cup fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large egg, well beaten
1 cup crystallized ginger, then finely minced
1 t lemon or orange zest

Preheat the oven to 350F degree. Line a couple baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper or a Silpat mat, place the large-grain sugar in a small bowl, and set aside. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, and salt.

Heat the butter in a skillet until it is just barely melted. Stir in the molasses, natural cane sugar, and fresh ginger. The mixture should be warm, but not hot at this point, if it is hot to touch let it cool a bit. Whisk in the egg. Now pour this over the flour mixture, add the crystallized ginger (make sure it isn't too clumpy), and lemon zest. Stir until just combined.

Use a small cookie scoop, then tear that ball in half. Roll it into a ball and then into the turbinado sugar. Place dough a few inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until cookies puff up, darken a bit, get fragrant and crack.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

What's a girl to do with a husband out fishing and a sweet tooth the size of a Chipotle burrito? Make some cookies, of course. I've been eyeing a recipe from 101cookbooks for a while now, so I broke out the cookie sheets and got to work. There were a few scattered dishes in the sink, but I ignored them until the end, when they creeped up on me and multiplied until there were enough to fill two whole dishwasher loads. Good heavens. These pesky dishes. How did they all get into the sink?

I was worried that the molasses would be too strong, but it is barely noticeable. They are about an inch each, so they are extra fun.

A Gazillion Tiny Little Cookies

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon black strap molasses
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, oats, and chocolate.

In another bowl, beat the butter until fluffy then beat in the sugar and mix until it is also light and fluffy. Beat in the molasses, then the egg, mixing until both are well incorporated, scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mix and stir by hand until the ingredients barely come together into a uniform dough.

Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out a level cookie scoop and tear it in half. Then roll each of those pieces into a ball and roll it in sugar. Put it on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten with your fingers.

Bake for 7 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool on a wire rack.

Poppyseed Cookies

These tiny sandwich cookies are my absolute favorite. They take forever but are so completely charming that one look (or bite) melts all the frustration you had while you were rolling out and cutting a billion little 1 1/2 in cookies.

I brought these to work on my birthday this year, and everyone still talks about them. They are sprinkled with sugar and salt. Nobody expected the salt, so they were thrown off and they didn't like the distinct taste. Of course, I reached out and tenderly told them that the cookies do require a sophisticated taste and some people just aren't refined enough to enjoy such an adult pleasure. Needless to say, "Megan's Cookies" carries mixed connotations.

If you are looking for flaky salt, Trader Joe's is a great source. Or, you can just use fine grained sea salt.


It is easier to sprinkle the sugar if you use a mini strainer.

When you are rolling them out, it is easiest to do it between two pieces of saran wrap. The dough stuck to the counter, and it also stuck to the silicone baking sheet. And I hollered in frustration. Keep it simple and just stick to the plastic wrap.


This time, I made half of the cookies with sugar and salt on top, and half with just sugar. The ones that have flaky salt on them are the ones I sandwiched with chocolate. Yum-O-Licious. Here the fabulous, golden brown cookies. Oh, dear. I think I may have died and gone to heaven. I really didn't expect to get here.....now I don't know what to do with myself.

The ones with just sugar are just going to stay as they are. Mostly because when I was rolling out the cookies I looked at the clock and cried to see it was taking so long for so few cookies. Then I cried again when I was finished sandwiching the salty ones because then there were only half as many cookies. It was too much to bear, and this way they look more plentiful

This is my favorite one. Where is my heart? Oh yeah - Kevin has it.

Bloody Celebration

Have you watched Twilight yet? I haven't. But I did enjoy the books. Except I couldn't stand all the teenage drama. Oh, yeah...the whole series was nothing but teenage drama. Oh, well. It was fun.

Here is a recipe for some fun cookies to celebrate vampires everywhere. Actually, they look more like vampire VICTIM cookies than vampires....unless you comsider that all vampires are victims of other vampires. This is getting too confusing for me. Let's just talk about the cookies.

I would never lie to you, so here is my confession. I didn't use the real recipe. Instead, I went to the store and bought sugar cookie dough and raspberry jam. While I was there, I checked out the labels on the generic Cub brand and the name brand. The Cub brand had slightly fewer calories and no hydrogenated oil. The name brand (I can't even remember what it was) was still using hydrogenated oils! Granted, cookies aren't health food, but it is still shocking to see a trans fat in the ingredient list of a name brand product. They were under the threshold where they had to list trans fat on the top of the label. So I went with the generic dough.

If you are going to make these cookies the "cheater way", just slice up the dough (who can bother with rolling it out?) and put jam on top of one slice, cover it with another slice, then seal up the edges.

You may be wondering why some of my vampire victims are darker than others. Even though vampires are very pale, their victims don't necessarily have to be. Vampires don't discriminate. Plus, I forgot the cookies in the oven and thank goodness I finally remembered to get them out of there. As it turns out, the darker cookies were much tastier.

Sugarless Coconut Cookies

These wonderful coconut cookies are just what the doctor ordered. They are sweetened with bananas, sweetened coconut and chocolate. Yum-o.


First, mash up 3 bananas. I felt really clever when I thought of the potato ricer, thinking it would create perfectly mashed bananas. It turned into a gloppy mess, but the bananas got mashed.


A cookie scoop makes life a lot better. If you don't have a cookie scoop, go out right now and get one. They are fabulous. With a cookie scoop you can make cookies three times as fast, you don't have to put your grubby hands on the cookie, and you can gain even more weight (easy cookies get made much more frequently, and therefore, you eat many, many more cookies.) But this is about why you should get a cookie scoop, so forget that last thing.

Smash them down a bit - these guys don't flatten at all in the oven. Then realize that I forgot to put in the chocolate chips. *GASP* That will never do. Put everything back in the bowl and throw in some chocolate chips.

Ahhh...that's better. A tray of perfectly flattened cookies ready for the oven.

And here they are - all packed up and ready to be delivered. Will you be my friend if I bring you cookies once in a while?

This adorable box is from Sweet Celebrations. I went to get some dipping chocolate, only to be affronted by a "Going Out Of Business" sign on the front door. Sheesh. They were out of chocolate, but I got a bunch of cookie cutters, goodie boxes, and cupcake liners.


Coconut Cookie Recipe:

3 large ripe bananas, well mashed
1 t vanilla
1/4 C coconut oil - barely warm so it isn't solid
2 C rolled oats
1/2 C flax meal - or almond meal (ground up almonds)
1/3 C coconut
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
6 ounces chocolate chips (1/2 a bag)

Mix it all together and bake at 350 for 13 minutes, until they start to get golden brown.