Feels Like Fall: Lemon Ginger Drop Cookies

Ahh, Black Friday. How many people can resist a good deal? The challenge though, is putting all the stuff that you buy to good use and since a hand mixer and an full set of baking trays were part of my Black Friday list, I had to put them to work!

I'm happy to report that my first attempt at Lemon Ginger Drop Cookies is a success! Soft in the center and crisp on the outside. Ginger-y for sure. Made some minor edits to Madame Stewart's recipe out of curiosity, see below! Original recipe here.

LEMON GINGER DROP COOKIES
Yield: The recipe said it would make 3 dozen cookies, but I only ended up with 21 cookies, and each cookie is quite thin, about 2-inchesin diameter.

Ingredients

• 8 tbsp (1 stick) butter
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tbsp freshly grated lemon zest (original recipe called for 1 tbsp but seriously, you would have to grate 4-5 lemons to get 1 tbsp! Instead, I added a squeeze of lemon juice.)
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp ginger + 1 tbsp brown sugar (original recipe called for 1/4 diced crystallized ginger but I made a substitute since I had a lot of ginger. See substitution guidance here.)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Using the hand mixer, mix the butter and sugar until everything looks well mixed in. Then add egg, mix again; add lemon zest and mix. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, combine flour, ground ginger, baking soda, salt and crystallized ginger (or the substitute above). Add this mixture to the butter and sugar mixture, mix for 20 seconds.
3. And you now have cookie dough, tadaa! It should be quite sticky, or at least mine was. Using two spoons, drop about 2 tsp sized of batter on the baking sheet. Some people say use parchment paper for baking but my cookies turned out fine without parchment paper and just on a non-stick baking sheet. The cookies will expand a lot more than you think, so leave about 2-3 inches apart between cookie dough.
4. Pop the baking sheet in the oven, bake for 7 minutes. Take them out, sprinkle the cookies with brown sugar and then pop it back in the overn for another 7 minutes.
5. Once the timer on your oven goes off, pop the cookies on a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes.

Sounds easy enough right? I think it's supposed to be easy but because it was my first time making it, I think it took me almost 2 hours! But the good news is, besides some homemade yummy, ginger lemon cookies, the house now smells like ginger, lemon, nutmeg and cinnamon -- ahh, nothing says fall like spices and warm house!

Posted via email from I am Audrey.