Chocolate Ginger Sparkles

This is an amazing cookie. I’m just going to come right out and say it. It is chocolate-y and spicy and chewy and totally divine. I made these cookies for Thanksgiving, and served them along with this pecan slab pie and this apple sour cherry slab pie, and they held their own like nobody’s business. (Okay, maybe some people even liked them best — as my cousin’s boyfriend told me, “these are empirically good.”) But no worries that you missed your chance to serve them on Turkey Day, as these chocolate ginger cookies will make the most truly spectacular Christmas cookie, as well.Inspirations for these chocolate ginger cookies were many. First there is this chocolate ginger cake and this gingerbread cookie from Martha Stewart, both of which combine ginger and chocolate in the tastiest of ways and inspired me to try to do the same. However, both of Martha’s ginger/chocolate treats call for fresh ginger, as well as ground, and I wanted my cookie to get its ginger-y/spicy flavor from my spice drawer exclusively. This led me to double the amount of ground ginger in my recipe, add a bit of white pepper (as per this Smitten Kitchen gingersnaps recipe) and some cloves (as per this molasses cookie recipe, a recipe my husband heard discussed on NPR, oh, so many years ago, and one that has retained a place in my “cookie” file, ever since).As for my cookie’s chocolate-y-ness, I knew I wanted that amped up (Martha’s cookie uses a mere tablespoon), but was worried about overpowering the cookie’s spicy/molasses qualities. this cookie recipe from Serious Eats put my worries to rest, though, as its amped up chocolate flavor only intensified its molasses vibe.With the flavor profile of my cookie taken care of, I just needed to make sure I had the chewy factor down. I knew I would use bread flour and melted butter, seeing as these are my go-to chewiness enhancers (and ones that I have already discussed in my post about chewy chocolate chip cookies). And, having developed this mint cookie recipe while working at Baked, I knew corn syrup could help on the chewiness front, too (a trick I had originally picked up from Cooks Illustrated). With flavor and texture down, all that was left was the proper name for my cookie, and I must give my mother-in-law credit for that, as she has a ginger sparkle cookie recipe that I adore, and that led me to put just a little “sparkle” in my cookie, too.

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Chocolate Ginger Sparkles

Recipe Author Jessie Sheehan

Course Dessert

Cuisine Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup bread flour
• 1/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 6 oz chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 Tbsp dark corn syrup
• 1 large egg
• 1 yolk
• 1 stick unsalted butter melted, cooled slightly
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• Granulated sugar for rolling

Instructions

• Combine the bread flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and white pepper in a medium sized bowl and whisk thoroughly. Add the chocolate chips and whisk again. Set aside.
• Spray a two cup measuring cup (or whatever size you have handy that has a 1/4 cup measurement) with cooking spray, and add the molasses, corn syrup, egg and yolk (the cooking spray coats the measuring cup and makes pouring the molasses and corn syrup into the mixing bowl a whole lot easier). Whisk until incorporated and set aside.
• Add the melted butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and mix on medium to medium high until the two are fully incorporated and the mixture lightens slightly and is thick and glossy (don't be afraid to let this go for a while). Reduce the speed on the mixer to medium low and add the molasses mixture, scraping the measuring cup with a rubber spatula. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl to ensure the molasses mixture and sugar/butter mixture are incorporated.
• With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients until the dry is about three-quarters of the way incorporated into the wet. Remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, incorporate the remaining dry into the wet by hand. Place the stand mixer bowl into the refrigerator and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
• Remove the bowl from the refrigerator, and using a cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Place in the refrigerator for 24 to 36 hours.
• When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and remove the scooped cookie dough from the fridge. Place the granulated sugar in a small bowl, and roll each cookie in the sugar before placing it on a parchment-lined tray. Bake the cookies, one tray at a time, for 10 to 11 minutes, rotating the cookies at the halfway point. The cookies are done when they are cracking, craggly and dry-ish. After removing the cookies from the oven, press on each cookie lightly with a spatula.

Notes

Baked cookies will keep tightly covered on the counter for up to three days, frozen scooped cookie dough will keep up to a month in the freezer, and you can even freeze baked cookies and enjoy those for up to a month as well.