Remember when I told you the Chocolate Rum Tassies were the best cookies ever? I straight up lied to your face. Sorry, I mean, would you have rather I lied to your heart? You face was bad enough! My apologizes dear sweet readers….I was just protecting you from the inevitable weight gain that comes with this cookie.
If you were looking for a cookies to share this holiday season, you must stop what you are doing right this very second and take a good old fashion saunter over to the grocery store and buy enough ingredients to triple this recipe!!!!!
Like most women, I crave chocolate like fish crave water, or like cats crave catnip, or like Angelina Jolie craves adopting children, or finally, like Bill Cosby craves taking advantage of women #toosoon?
Weirdly, I don’t dream about food….you would think as a food blogger I would dream about food all the time….but I don’t, I never dreamt about food before until I made this recipe.
Segway into dream sequence……the following song is playing in the background…
There I was with the cookie……for today’s purposes I’ll name him Mr. Cookie….he was lovingly pushing me, in a tire swing, strung up in the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.
I screamed to Mr. Cookie, “Higher, higher! I want to swing higher!” I squealed with delight as Mr. Cookie obliged and I soared higher and higher into the sky.
When suddenly…I accidentally smashed into Mr. Cookie on the back-swing, and he went flying!!!!!
Beside myself with worry, I rushed to Mr. Cookie’s side. I screamed, “Don’t go into the oven light Mr. Cookie, stay with me!!”
A slow chocolaty smile, spread across Mr. Cookie’s delicious face. His cookies eyes suddenly popped open and he exclaimed, “Gotcha!”
Boy oh boy how we laughed until our sides hurt…..then I ate him.
Note, you’ll see this recipe calls for cayenne pepper, do yourself a favor and do NOT skip this step!!!! Cayenne pepper and chocolate are secret lovers and need to hook up from time to time…..just let it happen….you can trust cayenne pepper…he’s not like the others…..
Just don’t go overboard with the cayenne!!! If you mess up and use a teaspoon the recipe will come out gross and you’ll hate me. Don’t be a hater, use just a pinch of cayenne!
Seriously…if you only use a pinch, the cayenne pepper brings out amazingness in chocolate.
Also, even if you hate fresh ginger, please don’t skip that step either. The fresh ginger adds another delicious layer to this cookie that can’t be imitated with plain, ground ginger. You won’t regret it!
Chewy Chocolate Gingersnap Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1½ cup flour plus an additional 1 tablespoon of flour
- 1¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (just a pinch)
- 1½ tablespoons dark coco powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- 1½ teaspoons boiling water
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup molasses
- 1 stick butter, unsalted and room temperature
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 7-10 oz chocolate chunks
- ¼ cup sugar
Instructions
- Get out a medium sized bowl and add the flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, cocoa, and cayenne pepper. Whisk the ingredients together until every is well combined.
- In your standing mixer (or hand mixers), beat together the soft butter and fresh grated singer on medium speed until it's light and fluffy (approx 4 minutes).
- To the mixing bowl add the brown sugar and continue to beat until well combined. Now add the molasses and continue beating until again, everything is well combined.
- Now dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water, in a small bowl and set aside.
- Add half of your flour mix into the mixing bowl with the butter/brown sugar, mix a little bit.
- Add the water/baking soda to the mixing bowl, mix a little bit.
- Now add the remaining flour mix, mix a little bit.
- Finally, add your chocolate chunks and mix everything together until just combined.
- Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 2 hours, or you can go overnight. The dough will be firm.
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line two baking sheets with either parchment paper or baking mats.
- Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, roll approx 1½ tablespoons of cookie dough into balls.
- Place the balls approx 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. While you are rolling the dough into balls, the warmth of your hands will start to soften the dough. Once you have all the dough formed into balls, and on your cookie sheets, place them in the fridge and chill for 20 minutes.
- After the cookies have chilled, roll each ball into the sugar, and cover them completely with the sugar.
- Bake the cookies until the surfaces just begin to crack, 10-12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets in the oven halfway through the cooking time.
- Take the cookies out of the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes.
- Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let them completely cool.
- The cookies taste the best the day they are made. When bite into it, the center is ooey and gooey, but the sugar crust is kinda crunchy. You can store the cookies in an air tight container for roughly 5 days.
- If you have a cookie a couple days after you make them, I highly recommend you microwave them for about 12 seconds first. After your first bite, you'll understand why.
- SOOOOOO good!