Here’s another good choice for a holiday treat for your cookie plate, to take to a cookie swap, or to give as gifts. Joe Carson’s Ginger Cookie recipe was first published in Midwest Living magazine in 1999. I’ve been making them every Christmas since.
My husband loves the chewy texture. The cookie dough is made with vegetable shortening instead of butter. I normally follow the recipe to the letter, but this year I decided to use 1/2 cup of shortening and 1/4 cup of butter.
I like this recipe, too, because it calls for a couple Tablespoons of molasses. Molasses gives the cookie a rich flavor. They hold well, so if you decided to bake them a couple of days in advance, it’s no problem.
The recipe is easy. This is a family favorite, so I whip up a double batch with my electric mixer. If I don’t bake all the dough, I cover it with plastic wrap and store the leftover in the refrigerator in a container with a tight-fitting lid. That way I can bake up another batch in no time at all.
Joe’s recipe instructs bakers to roll the dough into balls, roll them in sugar, dip them in water, and roll again in sugar before baking. The result is a nicely cracked sugary cookie top. It’s fabulous, but I didn’t like the way the water clumped up the sugar. So, I decided to form the balls, roll all of them in sugar and put them on a cutting board until all the balls got their first coating. Before I put them in the oven, I roll them again for a second sugary coating. They don’t come out as spectacular looking as Joe’s, but it’s quicker and less messy, and the cookies are as delicious.
You may want to try a couple of my other holiday cookie favorites. Cranberry Orange Cookies and Orange Sablé Cookies. Joe Carson’s cookies and these other two make their way onto my cookie plate every Christmas.
This chewy ginger cookie recipe is from Joe Carson at the Silver Dollar City theme park in Branson, Missouri. It's the best ginger cookie I've ever eaten. Fantastic taste, texture and easy to make.
Author: Joe Carson, Silver Dollar City Theme Park Bakery
Recipe type: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Serves: 30 cookies
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¾ cup vegetable shortening, or ½ cup shortening and ¼ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 egg, room temperature
Instructions
In a stand mixer, beat the shortening (or shortening & butter) for 30 seconds.
Add sugar and beat until fluffy. 1-2 minutes
Add molasses and egg. Beat on medium speed until combined.
Add the baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt into the bowl. Mix on low speed just until the spices are incorporated.
Add flour. Mix on slow speed until the dough is well combined.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
Use a one-Tablespoon cookie scoop and begin to form the dough into balls. As each one is made, set them on a cutting board until all the dough is gone.
Put ½ cup of granulated sugar in a bowl, and roll the balls, one-by-one, in the sugar, and place them back on the cutting board.
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line two half-sheet baking pans with parchment paper. Roll the balls a second time in sugar and place them on the baking pans.
Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes until they're light brown on the bottoms. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.
Notes
Once cooled, you can store the baked cookies in a container with a tight-fitting lid. You can also make a double batch of cookie dough, bake one-half, and save the rest wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator.
I’ve made these cookies for five consecutive Christmas cookie plates. They’re a big hit! Cranberry Orange Cookies are so easy to put together. You mix everything in a food processor.
These cookies have an interesting mix of dried cranberries, orange zest, allspice, and cloves. Very festive flavors rolled into one or two bites.
They’re pretty, too, which always makes for an attractive plate nestled among the other cookie bounty.
A batch is quick and easy. I usually make two batches and store one in an airtight container in the refrigerator for baking later over the holidays. They don’t spread a lot, either, so you can fit more than 12 on a half-sheet pan. I got 18 cookies on each sheet pan this year.
Rolling the cookie dough in red sugar sprinkles before baking gives the cookie a crunchy exterior and a little sparkle. Cranberry Orange Cookies stay moist and keep well.
And buy red sugar sprinkles early in the season. Egads! I went to six grocery stores until I found four little bottles. And it was ten days before Christmas! Every store had plenty of green. I left two red bottles on the shelf knowing some needy baker would run into the same dilemma as I did. Maybe I should come up with a green sprinkle recipe? Next year, I’m ordering mine online immediately after Thanksgiving.
These are ideal cookies for the holidays - read quick, easy, no fuss. The dough is mixed completely in a food processor. Bright red sugar sprinkles give a little sparkle. Dried cranberries, orange zest, allspice, and clove give the cookies a bright festive flavor. And they keep well, too!
Author: Mimi from Food Network Magazine 2013
Recipe type: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Serves: 48 cookies
Ingredients
¾ cup dried cranberries
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons freshly grated orange zest
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of ground cloves
1 stick cold, unsalted butter, but into small pieces
¼ cup cranberry juice cocktail
½ teaspoon red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg, slightly beaten
Red sugar sprinkles for rolling
Instructions
In a food processor, pulse the dried cranberries and granulated sugar until the cranberries are finely ground and the sugar turns red.
Add the flour, baking powder, orange zest, salt, allspice, and cloves. Pulse until combined.
Add the butter, and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse meal.
In a 1-2 cup measuring cup, combine the cranberry juice, food coloring, and vanilla. Stir with a fork. Break an egg into the measuring cup, and lightly beat the egg.
Pulse the liquid into the other ingredients until a dough forms.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, about an hour.
Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat to 350F degrees.
Line two half-sheet pans or cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into balls and place them on a cutting board. Once all the balls are made, roll them into the red sugar sprinkles and onto the sheet pan.
Bake for 15-18 minutes. Remove cookies from the oven onto cooling racks. Let stand for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.
Store in container with a tight-fitting lid in a cool dry place until ready to serve.
Notes
I usually make two batches of cookie dough, mixed one at a time in the food processor. One batch I bake, and the second batch of dough is wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator until I need another round. These are fabulous holiday cookies. They stay moist, keep well, and are so pretty!
I adore any sort of pie. Sweet or savory, it makes no difference. And I love blueberries.
My mother made the best pie crust for 60 years. For a two-crust 9″ pie it was 2 cups flour, 2/3 Crisco, 2 teaspoons sugar, pinch of salt, and 4-6 Tablespoons ice water. That was it! I made her crust for years until I got my Cuisinart and read online that all butter was a better way to go.
Phooey! I over mixed in the food processor. Beside the fact that butter is more expensive, I didn’t care for the flavor of a butter crust. I know! Right? What’s wrong with me?
Lard makes everything better, especially pie crust. So I’ve settled on a new mix: 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup cold lard, 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, 1 Tablespoon sugar, pinch of salt, and 5-7 Tablespoons ice water.
My kids and grandchildren were coming over for dinner Sunday. I always make dessert for a Sunday meal, particularly because the boys were coming. I love to spoil them!
I decided a slab pie would do the trick! Sweeten us up and leftovers! I wasn’t in the mood to make pie crust, and I’d have to make a lot for such a big pie. Alas, I reverted to refrigerated store bought pie crust. And fresh blueberries – how simple and quick is that. Just rinse ’em off and they’re ready to be baked up into a scrumptious pie!
Here’s a tip!
If you decide to make this delicious slab pie or any slab pie, you’ll need two boxes of refrigerated pie crust. When you roll it out, place one circle on top of the other, and then roll it into a rectangle. And do the same for the top crust.
It was the perfect size. More than enough to drape over the sides of a jelly roll pan (15″x10″), and to crimp the edges.
A college roommate of mine bakes pies and desserts for her restaurant. She told me that store bought crusts are made with lard. Wow! That does make a difference. The finished crust is flaky and browns beautifully.
Admittedly, over the years I developed into a pie crust snob, believing homemade ones were the only way to go. After all, Mom did it all her adult life. I’ve had to rethink my attitude about refrigerated store bought pie crust. Think of it this way – I will bake more pies! Yes!!
Let’s Bake!
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Roll the bottom crust and place it in a 15″x10″ jelly roll pan.
Put 2-3 pounds of fresh blueberries in a bowl. Add zest of one lemon – blueberries and lemon are remarkable. Mix and set aside.
In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 3 Tablespoons flour (or cornstarch or tapioca flour – I use tapioca to thicken fruit pies.) Mix and pour over the blueberries. Gently mix until all the berries are coated with the flour mixture.
Pour the berry mixture into the crust. Really, I could have used 3 pounds of berries and will next time.
Roll the top crust and place over the filling and edges of the pan. Crimp along the outside. And, using a sharp paring knife, cut vents along the sides of the top crust. And cut something cute in the middle -I designed an “M” for Mimi!
Brush the top with a beaten egg. I sprinkled demerara sugar on top. You can use regular sugar, but I like the color and texture of demerara on flaky pastry desserts. It also adds a little crunch.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the berry juices bubble and the crust is golden, brown, and delicious.
I mean, seriously, in 20 minutes my slab pie was in the oven. Remarkable!
Try your hand at one. Don’t like blueberries, use sour pie cherries or apples, make a lemon meringue slab pie or how about strawberry-rhubarb? Yum!
Before I dive into this post, I must tell you about this fabulous sheet cake pan I found at TJ Maxx. It’s a high-sided Nordic Ware half-sheet pan fitted with a plastic lid. I just love it!
This aluminum baking pan is just the right size to bake my recipe for Giant Cornbread for a Crowd. It’s the perfect size for a Texas chocolate sheet cake, or any sheet cake for that matter. And the handy snap-on, high-domed, sturdy, translucent lid makes the pan perfect for transport.
I’ve had great luck finding lidded Nordic Ware baking pans at TJ Maxx at very reasonable prices. I have another that’s a quarter-sheet pan, and recently found that Nordic Ware makes a variety of sheet pans and muffin pans with the same lovely snap-on lids. (I have no affiliation with Nordic Ware or TJ Maxx – just love these pans and the store where I bought them.I’ve also found them online at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Amazon.)
Dimensions are 18″ x 13″ x 2″. The domed lid adds another inch or so. There’s plenty of room for highly frosted and decorated cakes.
What do I do with this lovely baking pan? All kinds of sheet cakes, obviously. But it really came in handy when my daughter hosted her youngest son’s 3rd birthday party. She invited a crowd of twenty or so, children and adults, and made pots of regular chili and white bean chili. Jessica asked me to bring cornbread.
My first thought went to muffins. But I didn’t want to fill all the muffin cups. And what if some guests wanted two or more muffins? I wasn’t into making three muffin pans. I opted to bake a Giant Cornbread for this crowd! So simple! So frugal! So delicious!
Now, for all you cornbread purists out there: This is a sweet cornbread made with yellow cornmeal, sugar AND honey. Not a southern savory cornbread. I wanted the finished product to appeal to a gaggle of hungry toddlers. The result was everything you’d expect from a good cornbread. It was crispy outside, moist inside, and sweet with the perfect crumb.
Next time you need a bread side for a crowd, whip up a batch!
Last week, my daughter took her two younger boys and me to go strawberry picking. We landed at Spencer Farms in Noblesville, Indiana. These folks have grown strawberries and raspberries since 1982. They have lots of pie making produce in their farm store, fresh and frozen.
And buy red sugar sprinkles early in the season. Egads! I went to six grocery stores until I found four little bottles. And it was ten days before Christmas! Every store had plenty of green. I left two red bottles on the shelf knowing some needy baker would run into the same dilemma as I did. Maybe I should come up with a green sprinkle recipe? Next year, I’m ordering mine online immediately after Thanksgiving.
