Salted Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

Guest post from Sarah:

So Judah's been pretty into Tastespotting lately, and this weekend when I was checking out his photo that had been linked on the site, I found myself perusing all kinds of recipes. Many of them were ones I shouldn't have been looking at when I'm trying to eat more healthy foods, but one I simply could not resist -- Salted Ginger Oatmeal Cookies. Unfortunately, the link didn't have the recipe (since we don't have a Cook's Illustrated subscription), but we do have Baking Illustrated, and the referenced recipe is in there.

The original poster took the CI Ginger Oatmeal Cookie recipe variation and rolled each cookie in Maldon sea salt. We didn't have that, but we did have some French Gray Sea Salt that Judah bought from Penzey's a few weeks ago just for fun. I thought this sounded like a pretty good use for some of it.

Without further ado, here's the recipe, courtesy of Baking Illustrated:

Salted Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

Makes about 18 large cookies

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I used regular ole ground nutmeg since that's what we had)
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but still cool
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

Directions:

1. Adjust the oven racks to the low and middle positions and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, nutmeg, ginger and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Either by hand or with an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about three minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
4. Stir the ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture using a wooden spoon or large rubber spatula. Stir in the oats.
5. Working with a generous two tablespoons each time,  roll the dough into 2-inch balls. Roll the balls in salt of your choice. Place the balls on the baking sheets at least two inches apart.
6. Bake until the cookie edges turn golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom half through. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for two minutes. Transfer to a wire rack. Let cool at least 30 minutes.

Notes:
I was a little afraid of over-ginger-ing the cookies, especially after opening the container of ground ginger and catching a whiff, so I only used 1/2 teaspoon of ginger instead of the 3/4 called for. Next time, I would absolutely use the full 3/4. Also, my rolling of the cookies in the salt got a little inconsistent (and made a messy process even messier), so next time I would sprinkle the salt on before baking.

But overall: Yumminess was achieved. I would suggest checking the cookies a little early if you do the salt thing. Some of mine were a little crispier than I would have liked, but I also think I made some of the balls too small as the recipe said it made 18, and I ended up with 24 and could have made a couple of more.

Comments

[K]

Oooo! You tried them! Don't you love the combo of the ginger and the salt? I was a little hesitant on adding too much ginger, too, but agree that I'll definitely add the full amount next time (or more!).

[jkelber]

The combo was great K! The only thing that would have made them better was using coarser salt, but she was limited by what I had bought. :) Next time around though, full amount of ginger and coarser salt. Then they'll all disappear before we can even try to share them with friends.

[K]

So glad you all liked them! Agreed, the coarser salt will definitely be even better yet.... :o)
(and, really, sometimes cookies needn't be shared.)

[Laurie]

Oh, bless you. I was cranky all day after I realized the other blog entry did not include the recipe.

[Hayley]

I love sweet and salty. These look wonderful. Thanks for sharing!

[Susanna K.]

I love ginger snaps and oatmeal cookies. This looks like a great combination! Bookmarking to try later.

[PioneerGirl]

These are the best. We added crystalized ginger to the recipe.