Candied Ginger Butter Cookies + Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies + Strawberry Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies

Candied Ginger Butter Cookies

Recipe adapted from here

I love love loooove crystallized ginger, (I love ginger, but I love the fact that I can have it in "candy" form in my baking and not just as a spice). When I saw this recipe the other night I knew that it was going to be made this weekend. A few weeks ago my dad went to an Asian supermarket and brought me back some AMAZING crystallized ginger... it doesn't even come close to the crystallized ginger I buy from the grocery store. This one is much more gingery, like, it has a heck of a bite, there isn't much sugar on it, and it's pretty flat. The ginger I usually buy are cubed, tons of excess sugar on it, and don't give as much of a bite.

I made these cookies and decided to double the amount of ginger that the recipe called for. I think the person who made this recipe used the regular cubed ginger, because boy of boy, this cookie had quite the spice to it. I'm not complaining, no not at all, but if you're not a fan of ginger and you bit into this cookie you would be in for quite a surprise.

I loved this cookie. It was soft, yet it had a really chewy interior. It had a beautiful combination of sweet from the chocolate and spice from the ginger.

I also really liked that these cookies were cut as though they were biscotti. It made it a luxurious and sophisticated afternoon treat. I had this dunked with my tea, and it made it even more of a treat because the chocolate began to melt in my tea! This was certainly a great cookie, and would be especially nice around the holiday's with a beautiful cinnamon or holiday spice candle burning with a book in hand :)!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp crystallized ginger, finely chopped

Drizzling:

• 2 oz milk chocolate chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and applesauce with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in the ground ginger, the cinnamon, and salt until combined. Using a wooden spoon, gradually stir in flour and the crystallized ginger.

Divide dough in half. On the prepared cookie sheet, press one portion of dough into a 10x2 1/2 inch rectangle. Bake for 22 to 24 minutes or until top is golden brown and edges are set. Cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes. Cut rectangle crosswise into 1/2 inch wide sticks. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Melt the chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave until smooth. Drizzle over cooled cookies and let stand until the chocolate sets.

Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies + Strawberry Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies

Recipe taken from here

When I first came across this recipe I admit, I looked at it with curiosity because of it's name. Amish Puff. I was more-so intrigued at what would be inside of an Amish chocolate chip cookie. However, when I looked at the ingredients nothing stood out to me as being out of the ordinary so I was a little confused. I'm not sure why I should have been expecting anything REALLY out of the ordinary, but it's just if you're going to put a certain word in a recipe it's usually because it holds tradition to certain people or there's something special to this recipe. I didn't find anything about it so my curiosity still remains as to why these are titled the way they are. Nonetheless, I still decided to make these cookies because I wanted to find that perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.

To be quite honest, I was a little disappointed with this cookie. I mean the flavour and such was there, but I found this to be an incredibly crumbly dough. It reminded me of a shortbread cookie dough. I was expecting it to be easier to work with especially since I saw beautiful pictures from where I found the recipe but mine just didn't seem to work that way, which again I find a little weird since when I was first mixing the dough it looked beautiful. I'm not sure why really, it may be the humidity in the air from the rain which could be off-setting some of my doughs, I'm not sure. I'm wondering perhaps also if the blogger I found this recipe from perhaps didn't refrigerate them?

I had also decided that since I went to the Bulk Barn and bought an excess of dried strawberries I would use them in this recipe. I really didn't like the fact that the strawberries were more gummy than dried, but in this recipe it really worked. In the tin I had brought to work with these, the regular Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies, and some other cookies, the Strawberry Chocolate Chip Amish Puff Cookies were the first to go, (I think it was all by the same person too haha).

These cookies were definitely good though, and they disappeared quickly, but the trouble of the dough was not worth it considering some doughs are really easy to work with and give much better results.

My quest continues...

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix until combined.

Add the flour mixture, and mix on low speed just until combined.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line several cookies sheets with parchment paper. Roll into balls and place on cookie sheets about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown. Cool cookie sheets on wire racks.

Have a great day :)