If you’re a ginger fiend, these are very addictive. I finagled the ingredients slightly to increase the amount of crystallised ginger and decrease the molasses, as the original recipe was just a bit too sweet for my tastes.
Adapted from Mrs Fields Best Ever Cookie Book!
- 375g plain (AP) flour
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 15g finely diced crystallised ginger (about 4 – 5 pieces) Edit July 2017: I now use twice as much.
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice or allspice
- few grinds of black pepper
- 270g dark brown sugar
- 190g unsalted butter, softened
- 1 large (59g) egg
- 60g (45ml or 3 US tablespoons) molasses or treacle*
*I used date molasses, a wonderful new discovery from Harkola.
1. Preheat oven to 150C with fan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sifted bicarbonate of soda, salt, ground and crystallised ginger, mixed spice and pepper.
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Add the egg and molasses or treacle and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour (I left mine in the fridge for 4 hours).
5. Roll the chilled dough into 2cm/1″ balls and place them on a parchment lined baking tray, leaving room to spread. Bake for about 24 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through the baking time. Transfer the finished gingernuts to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container – the cookies harden up a bit overnight, making them perfect for dunking in morning coffee!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
As the weather is a bit cooler here, all I have on my mind is dunking biscuits. Is there anything better? These look perfect for said dunking.
I was just thinking about Gingernuts today and now this post. Weird but in a good way! They are soooo good for dunking. I’ve seen them sold in a long oblong shape called ‘dunkers’ :-)
Hubby loves gingernut biscuits but doesn’t feel that they’re quite gingery enough so this recipe solves that dilemma quite nicely-thanks Celia! :)
Ooooohhhh yum! My all time favourite bikkies from home are gingernuts. I have my mum bringing over a truckload with her when she comes in 3 weeks! Thank you, thank you my dear friend for the recipe. Can’t wait to try these.
another new thing for me. never had them. thanks, celia! these are going on the list.
Thanks for this recipe, Celia – I love gingernuts and, as the kids don’t, I can be fairly sure that they will be where I left them!!
I just had a look at your post on Harkola and am now quite jealous. If we have anything even resembling a middle eastern supplier like that, then I have yet to find it.
Brydie, you are sooo right. I’ve got these stored in the freezer – like Amanda, my kids won’t touch them, so I have to hide them away, or run the risk of eating them all in one sitting! I find myself taking one out each morning to dunk in my tea… :)
Gill, oblong gingernuts? That is a fun idea! :)
Lorraine, I think you could go even slightly heavier on the ginger powder, although I’ve already doubled the amount of crystallised ginger from the original recipe. Hard to believe, since it’s only a few pieces, even when doubled!
Dan, love, this post was for yoooouuu… ;-) They’re not quite like the hard Arnotts gingernuts though, more chewy-crunchy rather than teeth-breaking hard.
Dana, I was going to say that they were probably a UK/Aus cookie, but then I remembered that the original recipe came from a US cookbook! :)
Amanda, Harkola is an absolute treasure of a place. They’re actually the importers of many of the middle eastern foods we get in Australia, so stuff at their retail store is an absolute bargain. We recently bought more mograbieh there – $4.95 from Harkola – the same packed was $11 at Essential Ingredient in Rozelle!
We eat loads of these, I like them rock hard and then I like to dip them in my Earl Grey tea and then tip them carelessly towards my mouth, hoping against hope that I won’t lose a (now soggy) piece on the way. The poodles are particularly partial to them too, though I suspect they are on the verboten dog food list somewhere at some vets.
Never made them, yours look tons better than boughten ones though!
Thanks, Jo! I can’t see why it wouldn’t be good poodle food though – I thought it was only chocolate that was bad for dogs? I have to go sneak one out of the freezer now… :)
I’m a little ginger-obsessed at the moment, thinking of gingerbread men next…
Hello Celia!
Your cookies look like a real delight!
I am a ginger fiend! I know I would LOVE these.
Well.
I’ve “print friendly” printed out your recipe and am firing up the oven to bake some of your gingernuts for Tony.
Back in a mo Celia ………………..
and I’m back.
Your ginger biscuits are absolutely delicious Celia.
Firstly, I always HAVE to tweak for my husband’s astoundingly savoury tooth.
So I only used 3 heaped teaspoons of sugar. I’ve only got fresh ginger in too, so grated in a large 2 inch nugget.
& I’ve made a second batch today, so I could take photos, mine are meltingly crumbly, dark, rich & slightly bitter with the molasses – which suits our tastes.
Sorry for not following your method exactly, but I do so enjoy a recipe that can be tweaked without harm.
Here’s one of your delicious cookies cooling:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hxfEyLZFYWvxcvs_NOmlog?feat=directlink
Gill, you are completely wonderful! Tweak away, my recipe is adapted from a Debbi Fields one to start with. I love the idea of using grated ginger – I will have to try that next – although I’m sure I’d need more sugar in mine than Tony’s 3 heaped teaspoons! :) Thanks again for trying out this recipe!
Pleasure.
My husband likes a biscuit with his cup of tea in the afternoon, so I’m always on the lookout for a fine recipe.
Thanks for that!
Yay! Thanks for the recipe. I have fond memories of morning tea-break with my girlfriends, dunking gingernuts into our warm cuppas. These would be much better than the store bought ones!
Thanks Emma, hope you like them! :)
[…] recipe is from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial with one change to the ingredients: I used golden syrup instead of molasses. Once you have the […]
Very tempting. Soft biscuits seem to be taking over the world, so it’s good to find a recipe that declares that the biscuits will be crunchy.
Hi Celia,
I followed the recipe and made oblong gingernut biscuits .. dunked in chocolate. Thanks for the recipe!
Gill
I made a batch of these tonight. I only had naked/uncrystalised ginger but it seemed to do the job. The dough tasted AMAZING. The biscuits came out alright too ;) They don’t conform to my current diet but I’ve had the ginger in the cupboard for a few weeks and needed the creative release of baking. I’ll take them to playgroup tomorrow and share the guilt.
I froze half the dough, I hope it’ll thaw ok!