Ginger Cookies

It is winter, it is Christmas and baking just happens this season! Listening to the carols, there I went baking again.  

My mind began wandering to 'Long time ago in Bethlehem',

In the 'Silent Night'

I envisioned 'Hark the herald, angels sing'.

The bright stars guiding 'We three Kings of Orient are'

Led them to the place where 'Mary's boy child Jesus Christ' lay.

 ' O Come All Ye Faithful' and spread the word.

'Go tell it on the mountain' and spread 'Joy to the world'.

It is a 'Merry Merry Merry Christmas'

And 'Santa Claus is coming to town'

'Dashing through the snow' here he is

With 'Rudolf the red nose reindeer' by his side

and 'Frosty the snowman' to welcome him

I 'Decked my halls with boughs of Holly',

and keep dreaming about a 'White Christmas'.

Looks like an overdose of carols!! Oh Never mind, like Shibin says when Christmas is over we should be tired of listening to carols and I still have 21 days more to go!

I am not a wonderful baker to be honest! I have had my disasters in the oven. There was a time I used to give up if I did not get the recipe right in the first go. Over time, I have learnt that patience has its virtues and I am ready to give several shots before I get it right. The end result has always been worth it for me!  The smell of the freshly baked goodies and the delight on the faces of my food testers:) make every effort worthwhile. I have learnt on the go that oven of different models behave differently, the type of flour that each one uses would have different levels of tolerance to moisture and so on and so forth. At the end of this recipe, I have given a few tips based on my baking experiments.

So here is my recipe - Ginger cookies

Ingredients

1. All Purpose Flour - 1 and 1/2 cup
2. Baking Soda - 1 tsp
3. Ground dry ginger - 2 tsp
4. Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp
5. Ground nutmeg - 1/2 tsp
6. Salt - 1/4 tsp
7. Brown Sugar packed - 1/2 cup
8. Butter - 100 gms
9. Egg - 1 medium size
10. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
11. White Sugar for rolling the cookie dough

Method

• Combine the dry ingredients listed from 1 to 6 and sieve them well
• Make sure your butter is at room temperature. Add the brown sugar to a bowl of butter and cream it using a electric beater or a hand whisk
• Break open an egg into this, add the vanilla essence and combine well
• Slowly, add small batches of the sieved ingredients, mixing with a spatula to combine
• Once the dry ingredients have combined with the wet, dig in your hands to do a bit of kneading and bring the dough together
• Let the dough rest for about half an hour
• Meanwhile line your tray with baking parchment and pre-heat your oven
• Wet your hands and pinch off small lemon sized balls from the dough. Roll it in a plate of white sugar until the ball is completed coated in sugar
• Place this on the baking tray and leave sufficient gap between the cookies for it to expand
• You could either bake the cookies as is or press it down with a fork and flatten it slightly
• Bake for 15 minutes at 180 degree centigrade
• Once done, transfer it to a cooling rack
• This cookie goes extremely well your cup of tea. Try it to believe it!

You may also note - 

• Ovens quite often behave differently depending on the brands, capacity and energy source. You may have to do several trials with your oven before you have the perfect cookies or cakes. When I started making cookies- I often used to get the underneath of it burned and the inside still uncooked. Its after quite a few experiments that I started getting the texture right. Patience always pays and the first time need not always be your best!
• If you are using a gas oven that lights up only at the bottom, you could try placing the baking tray at the top most slot and baking it for a while longer than suggested in the recipe.
• In case your cookie dough is a little too soft and you are finding it difficult to roll, just refrigerate the dough for a while.
• Cookies generally seem a little under cooked when you take it out of the oven - let it cool to harden and get its color.

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

I have been wanting to bake cookies for quite sometime. The last two attempts of mine was futile and I decided to give it a go once again. This time around I was lucky. I managed to get the heat and the texture somewhere close to what me and those who ate my cookie would call it RIGHT!

Peanut Butter and banana are my favorite combination any day and any time. I had ripe bananas with me and I made my own peanut butter - so then that was decided. It is going to be a banana peanut butter cookie.

Here is my recipe for those who would like to try out the same.

Ingredients

1. All Purpose Flour - 1 and half cup
2. Banana - 4-5 small ones or one big
3. Creamy Peanut butter - 1/4 cup
4. Butter - 1/8 cup
5. Sugar - 1/2 cup
6. Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
7. Egg - 1
8. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
9. salt - 1 pinch

Method

Preheat the oven for 15 minutes.

In a bowl, mash the bananas. The riper the bananas, the easier it is to mash. Add in the peanut butter and butter along with the sugar. Stir it in well using a spatula.

Beat in the egg and vanilla essence. Once this has combined well. Sieve the flour into the bowl along with salt and baking soda. Fold it in.

Roll out into balls -sizes of your choice. Line a baking tray with butter paper and place the dough balls a little apart from each other.

Press down it down using a fork first horizontally and then vertically. That was my choice of design, you may bring in variations.

Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, rotating the tray half way through.

Once done transfer this to a cooling rack. You may store it in an air tight container and should last you a good two weeks.

You may also note - 

1. You may have questions over the consistency of the batter, it should not be too runny neither too thick. In case it is runny, add in a little more flour to adjust the consistency.
2. Sometimes, you may not be able to make rolls from the dough, which being the case you may scoop it out using a spoon and set it on the tray.
3. The baking time may vary depending on the size of your oven. So count somewhere between 12 - 20 minutes as the ideal bake time. Keep checking!!