Adventures with crystallized ginger, or Baking for myself

[carbonel]

After all the holiday baking was done, and the cookie/brownie packages handed out (note to self: do not place moist brownies and crispy cookies in the same package next time), I had a dozen or so ginger cookies left. I got in the pleasant habit of sometimes having a cookie with afternoon or morning coffee or tea. Then I ran out of cookies.

I don't normally bake for myself, just for events or projects. No good reason, other than worry that it would be a bad habit to get into. I live alone, and I struggle with my weight as it is. But I had proved that I could ration the ginger cookies, at least, so I decided to make an batch of them, to have them available. The cookie jar, as it were.

I remembered to take the butter out of the refrigerator a couple of hours early for once, measured out the cup of crystallized ginger, and put it in the food processor. The processor chunked briefly, then stuck and whirred fruitlessly (or possibly gingerfully). The ginger was solid as a rock, but just soft enough for the blade to get stuck on.

I tried the slice-of-bread trick, and after 48 hours in a Ziploc bag, the ginger showed little signs of softening. (I did remember to put the butter back in the fridge.) It was time for more drastic measures.

One website suggested boiling the ginger for 10 minutes in a double boiler. I skipped the double boiler and just simmered it. That worked. The ginger flew all over the food processor, but it did turn into minced ginger, which is what the recipe called for. However, the remaining water was much sweeter than I'd expected just from the coating of the ginger. I suspect some of it boiled out as well. (I suppose my vegetable steamer might be a better alternative measure next time.) So I am now attempting to reduce the liquid to ginger syrup. I've never done, this, so I'm not sure when to stop, but there's no real downside I can see. Right now, I can see a fair amount of particulate matter, so I'll see if I can find some cheesecloth to strain it through.

After that, I can figure out what to use ginger syrup for, other than mixing with soda water to make homemade ginger beer, though that sounds like a fine thing.

Onward to ginger cookies. And I'll have to nuke the butter, since I forgot to take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time.

ETA: Cookies dough is all mixed, and cooling in the fridge before slicing. It's a little soft; I suspect another quarter-cup of flour would not have gone amiss. I hope it's a forgiving recipe. The ginger-sugar-water liquid boiled down to about a third of a cup of dark-brown very gingery-tasting liquid, which I have decanted into a plastic container much too large for it. This is why people who are not me keep glass jars.

Comments

[boxofdelights]

If you eat oatmeal, a spoonful of ginger syrup on your oatmeal is really amazingly delicious.

[carbonel]

I mostly don't eat oatmeal, but that's a tempting combination.

[lynnal.livejournal.com]

I discovered that cookie dough freezes really well in single cookie balls or discs. A whole batch of cookies is too much for me to have in the house at once unless I have a lot of people over. Either I eat too many or they go stale. However, I can have fresh hot cookies whenever I want if I freeze the dough and put the ready-to-bake cookies in a freezer bag. I bake them straight from the freezer and increase the time a minute or two.