Italian style meals, sustainable gardening tips, and lots of segues in between

My son is leaving town after a nice visit home and I have a need to send him off with his favorite cookies. Will this ever change? He said they are so hearty he eats them for breakfast. I like the way he is thinking; hearty sounds like a meal instead of a dessert. I would have seconds in that scenario.

One of the key ingredients in this recipe is ginger, a spice that imparts heat and sweet at the same time. Usually, I use ground ginger, but since I had fresh ginger root in the fridge, I decided to grate it and see how it affected the taste. The change was mind-blowing. Between the ginger and the sorghum, this is one very flavorful cookie.

Yield: 3 dozen large cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
½ cup sugar
1½ teaspoons ground ginger or 1½ tablespoons freshly grated ginger
4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sorghum (could substitute honey or molasses)
2 tablespoons water
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1½ cups raisins, Craisins, or dried cherries
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped (use sunflower seeds if allergic to nuts)

Topping mixture: you’ll need a small bowl of water, and a little sugar and salt

Prepare oven and baking pans:
Preheat oven to 350º.
Line three baking sheets with parchment paper, or grease pans with canola oil.

Mise en Place:

To melt butter: Place butter in a tempered-glass liquid measuring cup. Melt butter in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. If little flecks of butter remain after melting, that is okay; better to let them melt on their own than risk overheating and causing the butter to separate into fat, water, and milk solids.

To prepare chopped nuts: I won’t dirty the food processor for just one cup of nuts. Instead, place the measured amount of nuts in a baggie and use a meat mallet to crush them into small pieces.

To grate fresh ginger: As a general rule, when substituting fresh spice for a dried amount, use triple the amount of fresh. This recipe calls for 1½ teaspoons of ground ginger; I grated 1½ tablespoons instead. Know that 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon. Also, you can store unpeeled ginger root in the freezer.

First, peel the ginger root and then grate. I used a fine-holed Microplane grater. The ground ginger will be very moist.

To prepare eggs: Always break eggs in a separate bowl before adding to batter and then inspect for tiny broken shells or a foul-smelling yolk.

Measuring the flour: For a refresher course on how to properly measure dry ingredients, check out my post, Home Ec 101. As an FYI, I spooned the flour into the measuring cup and then leveled it off with a knife (or my finger!). If you scoop the measuring cup directly into the flour sack, it packs the flour into the cup. If you do that four times, for the required four cups of flour, you could add as much as one full cup of flour to this recipe.

Finally, make the cookies!
Into a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients: the flours, baking soda, salt, sugar, ginger, and oats. Mix on slow speed for about 30 seconds.

Add the liquids: sorghum, melted butter, water, and eggs, and mix on low-medium speed for about one minute.

Turn the machine off and use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the Craisins and nuts and mix on slow speed for another 15 seconds. Over-mixing the flour could result in tough cookies.

Use a tablespoon or a cookie scoop to make golf ball-sized portions of dough.

Place 12 balls of dough on each cookie sheet. Lightly press the balls with a fork placed on the dough in two different directions to create a criss-cross pattern.

Using a pastry brush, brush the tops of each cookie lightly with water followed by a sprinkle of sugar and a touch of salt.

Bake cookies for 8 minutes and then rotate cookie sheets on oven racks. Set a timer. Cook for about 7 more minutes, or until just lightly browned. Best to err on the side of “I think they’re ready,” than “Ugh, too hard” when determining doneness. Place cookies on wire racks to cool. Cookies will harden as they cool.

Other cookie recipes:
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies!!!
Mary’s Award-Winning Chocolate Chip Cookies
My Favorite Rollout Butter Cookies
Italian Sesame Seed Cookies
Italian Ricotta and Lemon Cookies

Here are a few other recipes that use sorghum:
Sorghum, Oats, and Cranberry Granola
The Biscuit King
Roasted Butternut Squash, Brussels Sprouts, and Cranberries
Raising Sorghum Cane

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Follow Judy’s Chickens on Instagram and Pinterest @JudysChickens.

Always check my blog for the latest version of a recipe.

There is nothing I like more than cooking with a room full of children who are eager to learn. I was so pleased these five young girls wanted to come over to learn how to make The Biscuit King’s biscuit recipe while visiting over Thanksgiving break. Their little adventure turned into a Home Ec lesson.

Some of the things we talked about:

1) Wash your hands for the amount of time it takes to sing the Happy Birthday song.

2) Set out all your ingredients on the countertop before you get started.

3) In addition to lining roasting pans with parchment paper, you can place them under any workspace for easy cleanup. A box of 1000 sheets can be purchased for $40 at restaurant supply stores.

4) How to measure dry ingredients:
Lightly spoon flour into a one-cup “dry measure” until it is heaped above the rim.

Sweep the flat edge of a knife across the rim; what remains is a level cup of flour.

Measure salt in the same way, carefully filling the measuring spoon so it overflows a little and then using a knife to level the top. Never measure directly over your mixing bowl, tempting as that may be.

5) How to measure fats (Crisco, lard or butter):
Using a spatula, place a blob of shortening into a measuring cup and pack it in. Use a knife to remove the excess shortening.

6) Mixing ingredients:
Using two forks, or a pastry blender to mix the fat into the dry ingredients.

Mix until the flour feels crumbly and the pieces are about the size of baby peas.

7) How to measure liquid ingredients:
“Liquid measures” are pitchers, made of glass or plastic, with a spout for pouring. To use, place the pitcher on a level surface, and measure liquid using the gradation marks on the side of the glass. Liquid measuring cups are used to measure volume not weight. In this case, we are measuring 8 fluid ounces of buttermilk.

8) The girls stirred the ingredients together for 15-20 strokes, just enough to get all the ingredients moist. Do not overmix or the gluten protein in the flour will start to stretch and become sticky resulting in tough biscuits.

9) Each girl scooped their dough up and placed it on a sheet of floured parchment paper.

The dough was a little too sticky to manage so the girls added more flour to their hands, the rolling surface, and the biscuit cutters. They rolled the dough out until it was ¾ of an inch thick.

10) The girls used a floured 2-inch biscuit cutter to shape the biscuits. Some of the dough was a little too sticky so we dropped it by the spoonful onto the baking sheet rather than continue to add flour and mix further.

This was fine. The biscuits were all delicious! Fantastic job, girls!

On measuring flour:
Many of my grandmother’s old recipes list flour measurements in pounds instead of cups. Here’s a little cheat sheet to help you with pounds to cups conversions.

Special thanks to my lovely group of budding chefs who are in grades two through seven: Sirina, Amelia, Lara, Leela, and Ana! Special guest appearance by Alexander.

Other kitchen how-tos on the blog:
How to Tell If an Egg Is Fresh or Hard-Boiled
The Navel Mary Way: How to Peel an Orange
Cookie Scoops as a Unit of Measure
How to Make a Thaw Detector for the Freezer
Got Jellybeans? Your Sense of Smell
How to Clean the Splash Guard of Your Garbage Disposer

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend and become a follower. When signing up, be sure to confirm the subscription on the follow-up letter that will be sent to your email.

Follow Judy’s Chickens on Instagram and Pinterest @JudysChickens.

Always check my blog for the latest version of a recipe.

@judyschickens

Italian style meals, sustainable gardening tips, and lots of segues in between

Home Ec

Home Ec: How to Measure Ingredients Properly

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