These delicious Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies were the perfect excuse to try out my new baking gadget: The BeaterBlade. This self-scraping beater attachment is used with an electric mixer and is a quick and efficient way to easily blend ingredients without repeatedly stopping to scrape down the bowl with a separate spatula.
This thing really works! I started by creaming together my butter and sugar, this usually takes around around 4 minutes to get a thoroughly creamed fluffy mixture, not so with the BeaterBlade.
Everything was perfectly creamed in a couple of minutes, light, fluffy, perfect. Everything that I added was easily incorporated and created a nice dough in less time than using the regular beater. The BeaterBlade is made of plastic so I am curious to see how long it lasts with regular use.
On to the cookies! These cookies are a terrific blend of fresh and grated ginger for a lot of spice and heat, molasses for a warm earthy flavor and chunks of semi-sweet chocolate for a sweet, creamy, chocolaty surprise in every bite.
Here is how you can make your own:
You can find the entire recipe here. I used Hershey’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks so there was no need to chop the chocolate. Set the chocolate aside.
Grate 1 tablespoon fresh ginger and set aside. Here is a tip for grating fresh ginger root: Buy a large size ginger root and peel off the skin with a vegetable peeler. When completely peeled, wrap ginger in plastic wrap and put in a ziplock baggie. Freeze the ginger in the freezer until solid, then grate the frozen ginger. When you’ve finished grating as much as you need, just rewrap in plastic wrap and put back into ziplock baggie and return to the freezer. Seriously, this works so much better that trying to grate freshly peeled ginger. Plus, you can keep the frozen ginger in the freezer and grate it whenever you need it so there’s no waste.
In a medium bowl sift together the flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cocoa. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the butter and freshly grated ginger until whitened. Add brown sugar and beat until combined.
Add molasses and beat until combined. If you prefer a more subtle molasses flavor go with 1/4 cup instead of the 1/2 cup in the recipe.
Dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons boiling water. Set aside.
Beat in half the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Beat in the baking soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Mix in chocolate.
Refrigerate dough until firm, around 2 hours. During the last 1/2 hour of chilling, preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or silpat and set aside. Use a medium ice cream scoop to make 2″ dough balls and roll in some granulated sugar.
Place balls around 2 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheet. I placed nine balls on one baking sheet and they came out great. This dough does not spread a lot when properly chilled.
Bake for around 18 minutes or until the surfaces start to crack slightly. Let cookies cool slightly for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
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