Triple Ginger Walnut Cookies Food

TRIPLE THE GINGER COOKIES

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and molasses. Combine the flour, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt; stir into the molasses mixture using a wooden spoon. Mix in the fresh and crystallized gingers. Cover, and refrigerate dough for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Shape dough into 1 inch balls, and place about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

KOURABIEDES (GREECE): WALNUT SUGAR COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Toast the walnuts until golden brown and fragrant, about 6 minutes. Let cool, then chop about half of the nuts (you should have about 1/2 cup chopped). Pulse the remaining nuts in the food processor until finely ground (about 1/4 cup ground).
• Stir the flour, baking powder, salt and nuts together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
• In another medium bowl, beat the butter, sugar, egg yolk, brandy and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until the mixture gets light and fluffy, about 10 minutes.
• At low speed, stir in the nut mixture to make a crumbly dough. Cover the bowl and set dough aside at room temperature for 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or coat with nonstick spray.
• With a tablespoon, scoop out 1-inch pieces of dough and roll into balls between the palms of your hands. Pinch the ends of the balls to make a football shape. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies set and start to brown, about 18 minutes.
• Remove cookies from the oven and immediately sprinkle them lightly with the orange water. (If you don't have a brush, simply dip your fingers into the water and flick it over the cookies a few times.) Take care not to douse them, just enough for them to carry the scent of flowers.
• Put the confectioners' sugar in a bag, and add 5 to 6 of the warm cookies to it. Very gently toss the cookies to coat with sugar. Remove them from the bag and cool cookies on a rack. Repeat with remaining cookies. Serve.
• Busy baker's tips: Dough can be frozen for up to 2 weeks. Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Baked cookies can be wrapped in plastic, then aluminum foil, for up to 2 weeks. To serve, let cookies come to room temperature before dusting with confectioners' sugar.
• Cook's Note: If you can't find orange flower water, try specialty stores or online.
• Copyright (c) 2007 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved

GINGER WALNUT COOKIES

Steps:

• 1. In a mixing bowl cream the butter (should be softened) with the sugars. Beat until fluffy using a mixer. Add the egg and extra yolk and mix well. Add the vanilla and bourbon and mix well. Add the salt, ginger, baking soda and baking powder and mix well.
• 2. Stir in the walnuts, golden raisins, and flour. Mix well. At this point you can bake the cookies, but for a slightly higher rise, chill the dough for 1 hour before baking.
• 3. To bake, have the oven preheated to 375 degrees or 350 degrees for a convection oven. Make balls of dough 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 inch in size. Leaving a couple of inches between the the balls of dough, bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 11 minutes. (Check at 10 minutes if your oven is hot or baking sheet is darkened.
• 4. Remove baked cookies from the oven and rest a minute before transferring to a rack with a spatula to cool completely.
• 5. Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container. Makes approximately 38 cookies.

CHEWY TRIPLE GINGER COOKIES

Steps:

• heat oven to 350
• combine flour, powdered ginger, soda, cinnamon, cloves, salt and cayenne if using. set aside.
• cream brown sugar, shortening and butter until fluffy.
• add eggs molasses and beat until blended.
• add flour mixture just until blended.
• gently stir in crystalized ginger and fresh ginger.
• cover and refrigerate dough for 1 hour.
• shape dough in 1 inch balls and roll in white sugar or powdered sugar -- or nothing and place on a baking sheet. may flatten SLIGHTLY not too much or they loose thier chewiness, or not at all.
• bake 8-10 minute cookies will be soft. check at 8 min.DO NOT OVERBAKE.

WALNUT COOKIES (POLVORONES)

Steps:

• With an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the granulated sugar and beat until well blended. Beat in the flour, and then the chopped and ground walnuts. Remove the dough from the bowl and form into a large disc. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator. Cut the dough into quarters, and then cut each quarter into sixths for a total of 24 equal pieces. Roll each piece of dough between your palms into 2-inch balls. Arrange the 24 balls onto the prepared baking sheets (12 cookies on each sheet), spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake the cookies until golden brown on the bottom and just pale golden on top, 20 to 25 minutes.
• Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet. Toss the warm cookies in the confectioners' sugar. Transfer the sugarcoated cookies to a rack to cool completely. (The cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature.) Sift more confectioners' sugar over the cookies before serving or toss in sugar a second time.

TRIPLE GINGER COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°F Line cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone liner. Place decorating sugar in small bowl and set aside.
• In a large bowl whisk together flour, soda, star anise, ground ginger and salt.
• Melt butter and stir in molasses, sugar and fresh ginger. Mixture should be warm, but not hot. Let cool if too hot. Whisk in the egg. Pour this over flour mixture, add crystallized ginger and lemon zest. Stir until just combined.
• Scoop out dough into small balls (I used small melon baller) and roll in decorating suger to coat. Place on cookie sheets and bake 7 - 10 minutes or until cookies puff up, darken a little, get fragrant and crack.
• Note: I "minced" crystallized ginger in food processor as mine was hard, it took awhile, but was very finely minced. I don't know if this would work if it's too soft. Ginger needs to be extremely finely minced.
• I also ground the star anise in my spice grinder and then sifted out the larger pieces. Original recipe called for unsulphured molasses; I used cane syrup for a little milder flavor.

TRIPLE WALNUT COOKIES

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy.
• Add vanilla, beat in well.
• Add flours, nutmeg and ground walnuts, beating inches
• Fold in the chopped walnuts and currants (if using). [Photo24688]
• Scoop 1/2 the batter (it will be very soft and sticky) onto a sheet of wax paper set on a double layer of foil.
• Using damp hands, roll dough into a log about 2" in diameter.
• Wrap in the waxed paper / foil layers and freeze until very firm, at the least 3-4 hours and up to 6 months.
• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
• Unwrap one log and roll it in the coarse sugar to coat the sides completely.
• Use a sharp serrated knife to cut the log into 1/4" thick rounds and place them 1" apart on sheets.
• Lightly press a walnut half onto the tacky surface of each cookie (dough will have defrosted somewhat) and using a pastry brush lightly glaze the top of each round.
• Bake, one sheet at a time, for 16-17 minutes. They will not look overly browned but this is OK.
• Cool completely on the sheets.