In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until smooth. Add both the sugars and beat on medium-high speed until creamed
Add the eggs, molasses, and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine
While the butter and sugars are creaming, Whisk the flour, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt together in a separate medium bowl. Set aside until needed
Once the butter and sugars have been creamed, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined.
Once fully combined, fold in the oats, dried cherries and crystalised ginger. Your dough should be quite thick and sticky. Cover and chill the dough for at least 45 minutes in the refrigerator
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats
Use a large cookie scoop to scoop the cookie dough, about 3 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and place well apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 13-14 minutes or golden brown. The edges will appear slightly darker than the centre of the cookie
Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely
Mix the flour, ground ginger, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar in a bowl, then rub in the butter to make crumbs. Stir in the chopped stem ginger pieces
Beat together the egg and both syrups, pour into the dry ingredients and stir, then knead with your hands to make a dough. Cut the dough in half and shape each piece into a log shape about 10cm in length. Wrap in cling film and chill for 20 mins
Heat oven to 350°F and line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment. Thickly slice each log into 12 and put the slices on the baking sheets, spacing them well apart and reshaping any, if necessary, to make rounds. Bake for 14 mins, then leave to cool for a few mins to harden before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely
Once the cookies have fully cooled melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure that the water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl. Dip one side of each cookie into the chocolate (it may help to wear gloves here!). Allow to set for a few minutes the decorate with a slice of ginger, if you like, and leave to set fully.
Valentine’s Day. Love it or hate it, there’s no getting away from it- even here I’m afraid. BUT I am hoping to give you something a little bit different in the recipe department. Heart-shaped and pastel-pink hued? Yes. However that’s where the predictability ends- or at least I’m hoping you think so too.
These started inception as…well…I was hankering for something sweet in between grocery deliveries. I wish I could come up with a more romantic, Earth-shattering epiphany than that but alas, no. My recipe for shortbread has been tried, approved and is a breeze to rustle up in a hurry. The instantly seductive baking phrase comes to mind, ” Quick and with minimal ingredients“. So in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I got to thinking of doing a Valentine’s Day recipe post on shortbread.
So how can I make it “Valentine-sy”? Heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies just didn’t cut it for me. and so the mental gears turned. I had recently stocked up the pantry of some baking ingredients. “Livin’ the lockdown” dream has me currently baking every couple days- can we say “Therapy Baking”? Anyway as part of a restock I had some crystalised (candied) ginger going spare. I have a love/ hate relationship with this ingredient. Whilst I absolutely LOVE it’s mellow, slow-burning, sweet heat (especially in combination with dark chocolate) and so that was at the front of my mind. Pink peppercorns was my initial selection for the next feature ingredient. My worry, however, was that it falls slightly into the territory of over-familiarity, bordering on a go-to spicy contributor to desserts. Sichuan peppercorns are ideal to fill this gap, lending their signature tongue-tingling sensation as an extra boon without the visual fanfare.
That, for me, was enough going on internally. I try to limit the flavors within a bake in order to stop them becoming a jumbled cacophony on the tongue. I was still thinking of how to finish the flavor experience that I had in mind. And of course- rose hits me! Now I don’t mean some random pensioner walking by whacks me with her Kate Spade tote- I mean Rose the flavor. Sure it can be a tricky ingredient to use but when handled properly it can really bring a decadent statement to a bake. And let’s face it (at the risk of being slightly predictable) what’s Valentine’s Day with roses in some form? I’ve combined it here with an understated addition of white chocolate to help compliment the heat from the spices baked into the shortbread, stopping it from sitting on your tongue too long and dominating your palette.
Finishing and decorating your baked shortbread cookie is entirely at your own discretion. Leave them plain and simple, or as I did add a few choice sprinkles and some edible glitter themed in the spirt of the amorous season. See? I can do pretty.
Whatever you choose to do, whether it’s make these and share them, or keep the all to yourself I hope you enjoy them.
Stay safe, and mask up.
*Updated to include Chocolate version as featured on Food Network Canada’s “Great Chocolate Showdown”.
Makes 16 heart cookies (I use a 2″ heart shape cutter), or 24 if cut into fingers
Ingredients
1 2/3 cups AP Flour
1/3 Semolina
2 Tablespoons Rice Flour (if you’re making a Chocolate shortbread version sub here with cocoa powder)
1 1/2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons fine sugar, divided
1/2 tspn Kosher salt
1 cup/ 2 sticks salted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 cup crystalized (candied) ginger, chopped in to small pieces
2 tspn ground ginger
2 tspn Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and crushed/ ground
To decorate
3oz White chocolate, broken into pieces (use Dark chocolate for Chocolate shortbread version)
1 tspn coconut oil
1/2 tspn rosewater (omit for Chocolate shortbread version)
Candy sprinkles, dragees to suit
Method
Shortbread Cookies
Lightly grease and line a 9″ x 12″ traybake tin
In a large bowl combine the flour, semolina, rice flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, round ginger and ground Sichuan peppercorns. Whisk together to further combine
Add in the cubed butter and rub together with your fingertips, or a pastry cutter, until the mixture is just beginning to bind together. Every so often do a quarter turn of the bowl to make sure you’re using all the dry mixture. You’ll want a texture somewhere between breadcrumbs and damp sand before you stop. Be wary of overworking the butter into the mixture – you want to avoid a dough that is feels slimey from the butter melting too much into the dry ingredients
Add in the chopped crystalized (candied) ginger and stir lightly to combine
Tip the crumb mixture into your prepared tin and press the dough so that it forms a solid layer. Level the surface with the back of a spoon or measuring cup, making sure the mixture is evenly spread and uniform.
Refrigerate for 30 mins minimum
Preheat your oven to 325°F
Remove the chilled dough from your fridge and using your cookie cutter mark 16 heart shapes by pushing the cutter roughly halfway into the dough. You don’t have to go the full way through to the bottom of the pan. If you’re not making heart-shaped cookies, you can use a knife or pizza cutter score the shortbread into 24 rectangular pieces (2 cuts by 7 cuts) taking care not to actually cut the full way through
Bake the dough for 30- 35 minutes or until a very pale golden brown, and deeper golden brown at the edges
Remove from the oven and using your heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut fully through the baked shortbread . The dough in the cutter should come away, giving you a heart-shaped cookie. On a wire cooling rack carefully push out the cookie. Repeat and leave to cool fully*
(If you’re not using a cookie cutter simply cut with a knife or pizza cutter at the score lines you previously made, cut the the bottom of the pan to complete the cut the full way through. Leave the full slab of shortbread to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully lift the fingers out of the tin with a palette knife or the parchment paper overhang and finish cooling on a wire rack)
To decorate
In a small bowl, set over a pan of simmering water, combine the white chocolate, coconut oil and rose water
Heat over a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is fully melted and all ingredients are combined
Turn off the heat and carefully remove the bowl
Dip the shortbread hearts or bars into the melted chocolate and set on a rack or tray lined with baking parchment or silpat mat. (If you find you’re chocolate is becoming stiff and hard to work with, place the bowl of chocolate back into the hot water pan and leave to re-melt to a more workable state
Whilst the chocolate is still setting finish decorating in your preferred way
Because of the oil in the chocolate, fully decorated cookies should be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to a week. Separate layers of cookies using baking parchment. To serve remove the cookies about 15-20mind before serving – or just eat straight from the fridge!
This cake started out life as something different. In it’s original form it took inspiration from Bejamina Ebuehi’s “Hidden Pear Cake” from her book The New Way To Cake (which I thoroughly recommend). I loved the idea of having the pear fruit cheekily peaking though the ginger cake loaf, inviting you to dig in and explore what lies beneath. In one of my typical left of centre epiphanies I found myself reminiscing about a favorite childhood dessert- Pear Belle Helene. There always seemed to be something so refined and regal about this desert in my mind. Even now it conjures up images of sophistication and elegance- ivory pears poached to sweet, glistening tenderness slick with silky, warm chocolate syrup swirling hypnotically with pear syrup and melting vanilla ice cream.- each bite a sweet, sandy indulgence. So? could I create this in a cake? Well check out my IG feed for more details.
The resulting cake was good enough that I wanted to make it the feature on it’s own- fudgey, rich chocolate cake with a warming spiced undercurrent. For those of you in Ireland and the UK it has more than a passing resemblance to the infamous McVities Jamaica Ginger Cake. Here however the spicy ginger it is pared down a notch so it works in tandem with the rich chocolate flavor of the cake. Allowing this cake to sit for a day allows the texture and flavors to really develop. I would recommend making the cake and let to sit for at least a day in an airtight container at room temperature and bam! you’ll hit that sweet spot.
Now I’m somewhat of a puritan when it comes to eating cake. Not for me the silky adornment of cream or the smooth chilly sensations of ice cream- I like mine sliced pure & simple and this cake is a treat as such. However I do know that it tastes just as awesome when gently heated adjacent to a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or tenderly enrobed in smooth custard. The choice is yours.
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsps ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup Canola oil
1/2 cup fancy molasses
1/4 cup orange juice
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp chocolate extract
1/4 cup whole milk
Method
In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and spices. Whisk to combine and set aside until needed
Combine the oil, molasses, juice and sugar in a small saucepan. Set it on low heat and stir till the sugar has dissolved. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Grease an 8″ x 8″ square cake pan with oil or line it with baking parchment and allow the edges to overhang for easy removal
Transfer the cooled molasses mixture to a large mixing bowl and add in the eggs, vanilla and milk. Whisk well until smooth and well combined
Fold in the flour mixture gradually into the liquid until incorporated. Make sure the there are no pockets of dried flour mixture. The final batter may look a little lumpy- this is okay
Pour the batter into the prepared tin, level the top and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If the top is darkening quickly, cover the tin loosely with foil and continue baking
Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then remove and place on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. Store in an airtight tin for about 3-4 days at room temperature, or refrigerate, tightly wrapped, for a week
Crumbs In My Beard 