Go Back
Print Recipe

Aromatic Five Spice Ginger Cookies

Course: cookies, snacks, Treats
Author: Wanda Baker

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp five spice powder
  • ½ tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • ¼ tsp kosher salt
  • ¾ cup butter softened but not melting
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup white sugar
  • 1 egg room temp
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 1/3 cup fancy molasses
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/3 cup candied ginger chopped small
  • ½ cup white sugar for rolling

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350F.
  • Sift and toss into a bowl ginger, baking soda, five spice powder, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, flour and salt. Mix to combine.
  • In a second bowl beat your butter with sugars until creamy consistency. Add egg and vanilla, beating some more. Finally drop in your water and molasses mixing until everything combined and smooth.
  • Drop your flour mixture into your wet ingredients. Add chopped crystallized ginger. Stir until combined. Mixture may be sticky. At this point you can put in refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes for easier handling. Or if your like me and didn't have time for chilling get right to work.
  • Pour extra white sugar onto a platter or pie dish. Set aside.
  • Shape dough into balls. I made the balls about 2-3 inches or big enough to fit into a 1/4 cup. Roll in white sugar until completely coated.
  • I put four at a time on my cookie sheets, so they need to be spaced at least 2 inches for expansion. Flatten slightly with back of pan or flat cup.
  • Bake large cookies for 14 minutes rotating pans half way through. Cool slightly in pan before removing to rack to let cool completely. If making cookies smaller adjust your baking time to 8-10 minutes.

Notes

Make sure your butter is softened, not melting. It is the key to getting a good chewy molasses cookie. It was a hot day when I made these cookies and as such a hot evening in the house. I recall the inside temperature reading 27 degrees at one point. As you can imagine, my room temperature butter would melt and as such I had to put it back in the fridge to firm up. Quite the game butter and I played the night I made these cookies. But I showed butter who was boss.