Honey Ginger Cookies

I'm back with a little honey for your honey on Valentine's Day. Honey Ginger Cookies, from a vintage recipe, are cake-like cookies, neither chewy nor crispy and are not overly sweet. They taste like honey, so if that's your thing, this is your cookie. I wasn't a huge fan, but my coworkers were -- these disappeared rather quickly. Or maybe my colleagues were simply distraught over the Super Bowl, as I brought them in the day after the game.

They are rather easy to prepare, requiring just a couple of bowls and spoons, and the butter is melted, so they take virtually no planning (i.e,, you needn't wait for the butter to soften, as in many cookie recipes).

Below is the entire mis en place for the cookies. The topping requires many of these ingredients, plus nuts.

To get started, mix the wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls and combine. No need to use a mixer; a spoon works fine.

The batter will look like this when properly combined.

I found it difficult to drop these from a teaspoon (as the recipe card instructed), so with gloved hands, I rolled them into small balls and just pressed lightly on them before baking.

The recipe calls for small cookies and I did make one sheet of them. But I was in a rush, so doubled the size. Both were good. Just don't put both sizes on a single sheet, as the larger ones take a few minutes longer in the oven.

For the topping, simply place the butter, sugar, honey, salt and nuts in a saucepan.

Let it come to a boil and spoon over the cooled cookies.

Production notes: I followed this recipe exactly, except I only sifted once. If I were to make it again, I'd add a bit more ginger. These also don't spread much, so you don't have to place them three inches apart. Note the old-fashioned spelling of the word "cooky."

Ginger Cream Cookies with Glossy Orange Frosting

I had high hopes for this cookie recipe and was a bit disappointed with the finished product (and wasn't going to blog about them). But then I got a hyper-enthusiastic text from my SIL (omg that cookie was so good!!!), so decided to share. These soft cake-like cookies pack a nice spice punch, but it's really the frosting that makes them shine.

The instructions call for rolling out the dough and cutting shapes with cookie cutters, but it was way too soft for that. Instead, I formed balls and baked them that way.

Below are most of the ingredients needed.

The beginning of the batter.

The middle -- don't worry if it seems to "separate" and isn't smooth.

After the flour is added, it will all come together.

Form into balls a little smaller than golf balls.  The dough is sticky; I wore non-latex gloves for this task.

Baked.

Frosted.

These recipe cards were victims (along with some others) of an unfortunate orange extract spill, so I've written the recipes out below. I did not use the seven minute icing on the recipe card because it was stormy outside, and it wouldn't have worked. Instead, I used glossy orange frosting that was on another recipe card with a ginger cream cookie recipe.

Production notes: I made half of this recipe and used about three cups of flour. The amount of flour isn't specified, and I didn't add enough to make it stiff enough to roll out.
The amount of frosting is enough to frost about 1/4 of the cookies from the full recipe.

Ginger Cream Cookies (Myrtle's from Mary)

Preheat oven to 350 F

1 1/2 c. white sugar
1 c. unsalted butter (two sticks)
2 eggs
1 c. molasses
1 c. buttermilk
4 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. ginger
1 tbsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
flour to make a soft dough

Combine butter and sugar and mix well.
Add eggs, molasses, and buttermilk. Combine.
Mix the dry ingredients together and add to batter.
Form into balls and bake at 350 for about 11 minutes.
Cool and frost.

Glossy Orange Frosting

1 egg white slightly beaten
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tbsp. melted butter
1/8 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. orange extract

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. Add more sugar if frosting is too thin.

Why Are These Called Jewish Cookies?

I recently bought a binder full of hand-written recipes from someone in Texas and was intrigued by a recipe called "Jewish Cookies" (which appears right across the page from a Christmas cookie recipe).  So I made them.  And I still can't figure out what makes them Jewish.  A friend offered one explanation:  These cookies were made by one of the few Jews in a small Texas town, and were so identified by others based on the religion of the cookie baker.  Well, that sounds as plausible as anything else.

So, if you want to try your hand, these are "Very Good" according to the recipe card.  Typical of southern desserts, these are really, really sweet.  And, while I was expecting to make drop cookies or even rolled cookies from the batter, it was far too liquid-y to make anything but bar cookies.  (These are also quite dense and, while not my cup of tea, my co-workers really liked them. The DH deemed these "not very good."  He ate two.)

I lined the pan with parchment, so as to create a sling with which to remove the entire cake after baking. These still stuck to the paper -- next time I'd also grease the paper.

Let the cake cool before frosting.

Frost first, then cut into squares.

Recipe below, and below that is the method I used.

Jewish Cookies

Preheat oven to 325 F
Grease and flour an 8 x 8 inch pan.

4 eggs
1 box (16 oz.) light brown sugar
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. coconut (sweetened or a mixture of sweetened and unsweetened)
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. salt

Beat eggs.  Add brown sugar and combine.  Add in flour and salt.  When combined, add coconut and vanilla.  Mix well and pour into prepared pan.  Bake about 30 minutes.

Icing
1/4 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 c. confectioners sugar
1/4 t. vanilla
cream or half and half

Beat butter.  Mix in sugar and vanilla.  Add cream until it is of spreading consistency and cover cake.