Joy to Your World & Ginger Molasses Dark Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

 

Wishing lots of joy to your world today and for the rest of this holiday season. We’re envious of your winter wonderland scenes filled with fluffy-cold snow. And we’re sure you might be a little jealous of our warm, sunny days at the beach. But the best part of all the different ways that we enjoy our holidays is that we get to experience one another’s joy through blogging. Where ever you are, we wish you lots of joy and love in your end of the world.

As we’re writing this post (Monday, 23rd at 9:30pm), we just finished our last day of shooting several campaigns and editorial assignments. We’re happy to just think about being able to sleep in tomorrow, what a treat! But you know, working, shooting and being able to make things that we love really makes us so happy. So doing what we love is what gives us so much energy and satisfaction, even if it means shooting for several weeks straight.

Now that we’re able to finally settle down and treat ourselves to nine days off (yes, 9 days!), we’re looking forward to being in our own kitchen and cooking for ourselves again. When we perused online tonight to catch up to what our blog friends have been cooking up, it’s thrilling to see so much beautiful food and wonderful gatherings taking place. There definitely is so much joy going on in your worlds!

While going through our archive of images, we found some images of pre-holiday fun we had while in Utah last month when we were at our Bountiful cookbook signing. We signed booked at Kings English in Salt Lake City and lovely Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen invited us to stay at her beautiful house. On top of that, Kalyn and Maria worked together and hosted a little gathering at Kalyn’s house.

 winter wonderland scene in Kalyn’s front yard 

It was so awesome to see these lovely bloggers at our signing and best of all, they brought some of their beautiful food and desserts to the potluck at Kalyn’s house. Their talent in the kitchen is incredible. No doubt, we tasted some of the most incredible food from our blogging friends.

Thanks ladies for bringing such wonderful food to share. We loved every bite! & we love you!

Delicious savory dishes from Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen , Dara of Cookin’ Canuck  and Becky of The Vintage Mixer

Incredible desserts from: Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod, Rachael of La Fuji Mama, Barbara from Barbara Bakes, Annalise from Completely Delicious, and Holly from Phemomenon.

Inspired from everyone’s cooking and baking online, we’re sharing one last holiday cookie recipe for you. Because we can’t get enough of our favorite crack (or crinkle) cookies, here’s another one for ya: these ginger molasses dark chocolate crinkle cookies.

A little while back we shared our bourbon dark chocolate crack cookies and we just had to make another batch for Christmas, so we made a ginger molasses version, which is just as good.

Christmas isn’t the same without cookies, so bring em’ on! And hope your holidays are filled with lots of sleep, cookies and joy.

love you all,

diane, todd, lexi and sierra.

Yield: 24-30 cookies

Total Time: 3 hours

Adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz. For a cherry version, we posted another adaptation previously here. We will often freeze the chocolate dough balls after they've been coated with the regular sugar, and when ready to use, thaw for about 30 minutes, coat in confectioners sugar and bake.
The dough can be refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month. These chocolate cookies are best eaten while still warm (aren't most cookies) or at least the same day.

3/4 cup (100 g) all-purpose flour1/2 teaspoon baking powder1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (+ 1 tablespoon for coating cookies)1/2 teaspoon ground ginger1/4 teaspoon ground clove8 ounces (225 g) dark chocolate, chopped3 Tablespoons (45 g) unsalted butter1/4 cup (60ml) unsulphured molasses1 teaspoon vanilla extract2 large eggs,room temp.1/3 cup (65 g) sugar (+ 1/2 cup for coating cookies)Confectioners Sugar (for coating cookies)In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ginger, and clove for at least 20 seconds. Set aside.Combine the dark chocolate, butter, molasses, and vanilla extract in a in a medium bowl over a pot of simmering water. Gently melt the chocolate and butter, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove the bowl from the simmering water.Whisk together the eggs and sugar on high until the mixture forms a well-defined ribbon when the whisk attachment is lifted out (@ 5 min).  By hand, gently stir in the melted chocolate mixture.Again by hand, stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Cover and refrigerate until firm (1-2 hours).

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a couple baking pans with parchment paper.

Whisk the 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of sugar together in a bowl. Pour the confectioners sugar in a separate bowl. Form chocolate cookies into 1" balls. Roll the balls in the regular sugar, and then roll in the confectioners sugar to coat.  Place on the baking sheets spaced about 1" apart.Bake for 6 minutes then rotate the cookies sheets and bake for another 6-8 minutes. Cookies should still be slightly firm on the edges and fairly soft in the centers. Don't overbake them.Let the cookies cool on the sheet pan until firm enough to handle then transfer to a cooling rack.

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Meyer Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I love a really good cookie. Though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I appreciate and savor every bite of dessert that my palate can tolerate. And though I’m not capable of eating too much, I’m always searching for a great recipe that can satisfy my two to three bites of sweet joy.

And what do I mean by a really good cookie? I know everyone has their criteria on what they expect out of a cookie, so having an open discussion here is always fun to see what you expect in your next warm batch. I don’t consider myself a cookie-snob, though I’m known to be very frustrated if I pay $3.50 for a mediocre cookie in a bakery!

What I love out of cookies are great texture, chew and flavor. We’ve previously written about one of our favorite granola cookies and now I found this on recipe on Pinterest and I’m so blown away by it’s flavor because I love meyer lemon and the flavor really shines in this cookie. It’s so excellent that I actually inhaled 4 cookies in one sitting. And for me, that’s an eating feat.

I found this popular lemon crinkle cookie recipe on Pinterst and it was made my Lauren of the lovely Lauren’s Latest blog. Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve been finding some really fabulous recipes, including my last magic custard cake and when I found Lauren’s cookie recipe few months ago, I’ve been equally obsessed over it.

Finally, I reminded Todd about it and he immediately dived into the kitchen to bake up a batch with our garden meyer lemons. He’s a great guy and why I cherish him so much is that he loves to bake cookies. I’m good at finding the recipe and eating them, so we’re we’re a perfect match!

The verdict is nothing but applause for Lauren’s recipe. I’m sending you all a big word of caution because if you love lemon cookies, if you love meyer lemons and if you’re a lover of snickerdoodles, you will find yourself stuffing yourself silly with these lovely cookies. They’re soft and chewy, similar to the texture of a snickerdoodle, but with the bright flavors of meyer lemon and delicate aroma of powdered sugar. We’ve adapted it a bit to suit our taste and our meyer lemons. But you can refer to her original recipe or use our version with the meyer lemons.

I’m confident this recipe will be making it’s appearance at our Summer dinner parties because they’re that good!

Enjoy,

diane

Our cookbook, Bountiful, is available for pre-order on Amazon! & we shared a post about it here.

Yield: 24-36 Cookies

Total Time: 30 min

Adapted from Lauren's Latest Lemon Crinkle Cookies. The cookies have a soft interior texture with a slightly crisp exterior given to it by rolling the cookies in confectioners sugar before baking. Their texture reminds us of one of our favorite cookies, our Snickerdoodles, but with a lemon flavor. Adjustments to Lauren's original recipe were made to suite the sweeter taste of the meyer lemon and to our own personal preferences. Make sure to check out her original recipe as well. It's fantastic.

1 1/2 cups (190g) Flour1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt or Kosher Salt1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder1/8 teaspoons Baking Soda1/2 cup (113g) unsalted Butter, softened1/2 cup (110g) packed Brown Sugar1/2 cup (100g) Sugar½ teaspoon (3ml) Vanilla Extract1 Egg1 teaspoon (5ml) Meyer Lemon Zest (@ 1 meyer lemon's worth)2 Tablespoons (30ml) fresh Meyer Lemon Juice1/4 cup (30g) Confectioners SugarPreheat an oven to 350°F. Line a couple sheet pans with parchment paper.In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda for at least 20 seconds. Set aside.In mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract, egg, meyer lemon zest, and meyer lemon juice until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again to make sure everything is incorporated.Stir in the flour mixture until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to get all of the flour.Sift the confectioners sugar onto a large plate. Form the dough into 1 inch sized balls (a 1/2 oz. cookie scoop works perfectly to help make balls). Roll the balls in the confectioners sugar then place 2 inches apart on the lined sheet pans.Bake for 9-11 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies just begin to turn light golden and the tops of the cookies look matte (no longer shiny or wet looking). Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

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