Chocolate-Striped Ginger Slice-and-Bake Butter Cookies
By Lan LamPublished on September 23, 2024
Time
1½ hours, plus 1½ hours chilling and cooling
Yield
Makes about 50 cookies
Ingredients
Before You Begin
You can substitute semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips for the chopped chocolate. To ensure that your cookies are the same size, it's important to roll the logs so that they have a diameter of 1¼ inches. Don't skip the rest in step 4; letting the sliced dough warm to room temperature helps the cookies expand evenly as they bake. Tightly wrapped dough logs can be refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to two months. Thaw in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours before slicing.
Instructions
- Whisk flour, crystallized ginger, ground ginger, salt, and baking powder together in bowl. In second bowl, whisk melted butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla until very smooth. Add flour mixture and stir with rubber spatula or wooden spoon until well combined (dough will be loose). Let dough rest until firm, about 5 minutes.
- Divide dough in half and roll each half into log that is 1¼ inches in diameter and about 10 inches long. Wrap logs tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Let chilled dough sit on counter to soften slightly, about 15 minutes. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Slice logs into ¼-inch-thick rounds and space 1 inch apart on prepared sheets. Let rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until edges are just golden, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking.
- Let cool on sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and let cool completely, about 30 minutes. Reserve parchment-lined sheets.
- Microwave chocolate in bowl at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. Using spoon, drizzle chocolate over cookies. While chocolate is still wet, use offset spatula to carefully return cookies to reserved sheets. Refrigerate until chocolate is set, about 15 minutes. Serve. (Cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 10 days.)
Time
1½ hours, plus 1½ hours chilling and coolingYield
Makes about 50 cookiesIngredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Ingredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Ingredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Why This Recipe Works
We started our slice-and-bake chocolate-ginger cookie dough with melted rather than softened butter. This allowed us to skip the usual creaming step and simply stir in the sugar along with an egg yolk and vanilla extract. A little baking powder opened up tiny air pockets in the dough and kept it from being too dense. The yolk's proteins and the sugar gave the cookies a pleasantly firm and crumbly texture and extended their shelf life to 10 days, making them ideal for shipping or gifting. Two kinds of ginger—crystalized and ground—supplied zingy flavor. We rolled the dough into logs and refrigerated them until they were firm. Finally, we cut the chilled logs into rounds before baking. To add a decorative chocolate element, we melted chopped bittersweet chocolate in the microwave and then drizzled it over the cooled cookies.
Before You Begin
You can substitute semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips for the chopped chocolate. To ensure that your cookies are the same size, it's important to roll the logs so that they have a diameter of 1¼ inches. Don't skip the rest in step 4; letting the sliced dough warm to room temperature helps the cookies expand evenly as they bake. Tightly wrapped dough logs can be refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to two months. Thaw in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours before slicing.
Instructions
- Whisk flour, crystallized ginger, ground ginger, salt, and baking powder together in bowl. In second bowl, whisk melted butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla until very smooth. Add flour mixture and stir with rubber spatula or wooden spoon until well combined (dough will be loose). Let dough rest until firm, about 5 minutes.
- Divide dough in half and roll each half into log that is 1¼ inches in diameter and about 10 inches long. Wrap logs tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Let chilled dough sit on counter to soften slightly, about 15 minutes. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Slice logs into ¼-inch-thick rounds and space 1 inch apart on prepared sheets. Let rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until edges are just golden, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking.
- Let cool on sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and let cool completely, about 30 minutes. Reserve parchment-lined sheets.
- Microwave chocolate in bowl at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. Using spoon, drizzle chocolate over cookies. While chocolate is still wet, use offset spatula to carefully return cookies to reserved sheets. Refrigerate until chocolate is set, about 15 minutes. Serve. (Cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 10 days.)
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