Ginger Cookies

Well, it's Sunday night and I'm sitting here eating these tiny, extremely delicious cookies and watching  the 2013 world gymnastics championships. Soooo yeah, it's a pretty good end to the day. Truth be told, I already know who won everything. (NBC doesn't take gymnastics as seriously as it does its other sports and is airing this major competition over a week after it's happened.) But that's OK. I'm just happy to hear Tim Daggett talk to me about the intense toll the Drăgulescu vault takes on the legs. (Like he knows! Just kidding! He totally broke his leg landing a vault in 1987.) (But then what's Al Trautwig's excuse?)

Point being, I'd been wanting to make these cookies for a long time, but I'm kind of glad I didn't manage to gather all of the ingredients until this weekend. Because Fall has finally arrived here in Los Angeles and it was the perfect, vaguely chilly afternoon to make warming, spicy ginger cookies. 

Just check out that autumn sunlight! 

I'm already planning on making them again.

In non-ginger-cookie news, Matt and I are super excited to debut season two of our cooking show. Little did you (or we) know it at the time, but that baked apple video with the massive cliffhanger ending was actually our season one finale! What the heck did that note say? Will there be a new intro sequence? Will Dame Judi Dench continue to insult my garden? Find out the answers to these questions and more next week! 

Ginger Cookies (with chocolate and dried apricots) via Super Natural Every Day

makes 48 tiny cookies

1/2 cup turbinado sugar (or another large-grain kind of sugar. I used sanding sugar.)
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2/3 cup fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
1 large egg, well beaten
1 cup finely chopped dried apricots

Finely chop the chocolate bar into 1/8-inch pieces, more like (mostly) shavings really.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, and salt.

Heat the butter in a saucepan until it is just barely melted. Remove from heat and stir in the molasses, sugar, and fresh ginger. The mixture should be warm, but not hot at this point, if it is hot to the touch let it cool a bit. Whisk in the egg. Now pour this over the flour mixture, and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate and apricots.

Chill for 30 minutes, long enough to let the dough firm up a bit.

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees - racks in the top and bottom third of the oven. Line a couple baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper or a Silpat mat, and place the large-grain sugar in a small bowl.

Scoop out the dough in exact, level tablespoons. Then tear those pieces of dough in two and roll each piece into a ball. Grab a small handful of the large-grained sugar and roll each ball between your palms to heavily coat the outside with sugar. Place the cookies a few inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until cookies puff up, darken a bit, and get quite fragrant.