Ginger - Spice Crinkles

Today I went to the grocery store to pickup one item. While there, I meandered first through the produce section inhaling he deep dark greens and orangy squash with my hungry eyes. I then found myself in an isle where folksy cloth squares tied with butcher's string topped jam jars. Gourmet mustards with titles written in calligraphy made the basic yellow kind look uncomfortably out of style. I love gourmet food stores.

With my one and only food item  in hand, a whole bunch of other things beckoned my attention. Items like pita bread and hummus. I don't normally need these things, but today, I just had to have them. They looked so good. I went to the checkout counter, paid for my goods, then I was back in my car driving home. Once home, I took the pita bread and hummus out of the shopping bag, but where was item number three? Where did it go? I looked over the receipt and discovered that the cashier forgot to ring it up and so it was never put in my bag. Blargh!

I guess I was too busy swooning over the artisan breads to notice that the one food item I needed most was neglected.

Earlier today I found a recipe for a Ginger Snap type cookie that called for fresh ginger and guess what? I didn't have fresh ginger, and when I went to the store to get it, I came back with pita bread and hummus.

Later when I checked over the recipe again, I realized that the recipe called for ground ginger all along. Why did I think I needed fresh ginger?  Trust me, stanger things have happened.

But enough about my shopping misadventure.

These cookies are not hard like ginger snaps and they're much more subtle in flavor than your average ginger bread cookie. This cookie has a nice balance of flavor and the ground ginger worked like a champ. Oh, and the pita bread and hummus, yum.

Ginger - Spice Crinkles

Recipe from: The All America Cookie Book

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground clove
1 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup white vegetable shortening
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
2 1/2 tbsp light or dark molasses
1 large egg
1/4 tsp finely grated orange zest

1/4 cup sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 375.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon; set aside. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter, shortening, brown sugar, and molasses until well blended and fluffy. Beat in the egg and orange zest until very well blended and smooth. Beat in half of the flour mixture until evenly incorporated. Beat or stir in the remaining flour mixture until evenly incorporated. Let dough stand for 5 minutes, or until firmed up slightly.

Shape portions of the dough into generous 1-inch balls with lightly greased hands. Put the 1/4 cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Roll each ball in the sugar until lightly coated. Place on baking sheets, spacing about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using your hand, pat down the cookie tops just slightly.

Bake the cookies, on sheet at a time for 8 to 11 minutes. When slightly cooled, transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.