These spicy wonders are the little black dress of cookies. These sweet, crunchy, snappy cookies are simple to make and yet special enough that you can dress them up or down depending on the occasion. They are so good you just keep munching on them, like chips. One after the other. Friend dropped by? Brew some tea and BAM- just like that you have a tea party. Need a special bachelorette or Mother’s Day treat? Just put a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream in between 2 of these beauties for a memorable ice cream sandwich.
These cookies are inspired by gingersnap recipes but so much better with an authentic chai spice blend complete with sweet and savory spices balanced to perfection.
I bake some to eat right away and save the rest of the uncooked dough pre-portioned in my freezer for when I need a special treat but don’t want to wreck my clean kitchen. I make them with gluten free flour. This recipe can be modified for a vegan diet.
210 g gluten free flour (I used @KingArthurBaking, Measure for Measure)
73 g brown sugar
50 g white cane sugar
36 g cornstarch
3 g baking soda
1.5 g kosher salt
1 heaping Tablespoon Chai Is Chai® spice blend or make your own sweet and savory blend with cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, fennel, nutmeg and cloves.
Mix all of the dry ingredients very well so it is not lumpy and all of the ingredients are distributed throughout.
Add the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl.
63 g molasses
42 g honey
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 stick room temperature unsalted butter
1 whole egg, beaten
Mix well. Place dough in the fridge to chill while you preheat the oven to 300 degree F. You are going to bake these cookies at a low temperature for 25-30 minutes which is longer than you would normally bake a cookie. But that is how you get them to be crispy delicious.
Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Use a small scoop to make the cookie dough balls so you get evenly sized cookies. Then roll each ball gently in your hands to make them perfectly round. Don’t flatten them as they will spread during baking.
You can bake a 1 sheet batch and then portion out the rest of the dough and freeze them for future cookie cravings. Otherwise, you will get about 24-36 cookies out of this dough depending on your scoop size.
Bake at 300 degrees F for 25 minutes. The bake time depends on how hot your oven runs so keep an eye on them. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cookies crisp up on the pan. Once the pan is cool, move the cookies to a rack to get rid of any remaining moisture. If you want them even crispier, you can let them bake a few more minutes. But be careful not to let them burn.
Store them in a glass jar with a good fitting lid so that they don’t get soggy. Not that they are going to last more than a day!
Hope yours are even better than mine! Bete’avon!
Post your cookie pics to #meetmykneads so we can oooh and ahhhh!
Based on a recipe from Glutenfreeonashoestring.com.