One of the best things I've ever eaten in an airport was a
ginger slice in Auckland, New Zealand. Think of a bar cookie with an almost shortbread-like crust, topped with a thick ginger icing. But this is icing with fire power -- the ginger is no afterthought and doesn't play second fiddle to molasses or cinnamon or allspice or anything else.
Right about now everyone goes crazy for gingerbread with its earthy, spicy richness, chock full of molasses, nutmeg, allspice, and oh yeah, ginger. And I'm right there, too. I made a batch of molasses (really, gingerbread) cookies a couple of weekends ago from a Prudence Penny recipe from waaaaaay back. But they weren't much to talk about (um, hard and stale at the same time on day 2?). So then yesterday while doing a little
DailyCandy catch up reading, I came across
the Meatball Shop's Ginger Cookies recipe with a ginger lover's triple-threat: fresh, ground
and, yeah crystallized. No molasses in sight! All I can say is, thank you Daniel Holzman and David Chernow.
(the old one) from the library. And over the last few months, I've started to get the hang of the bread baking thing, just from having a big container of dough sitting in the fridge, ready to go whenever the mood the strikes me. Fair disclosure, it's the mixing that takes 5 minutes, the dough still has to proof for an hour and bake for another 40 minutes.
