Big Softies

Littlej loves baking days

Opening the door to the house to be hit by sweet spiciness and cookie goodness after a long day of school. A tall glass of milk next to an even taller stack of biscuits sure makes homework more appealing now, doesn't it?



There are so many different types of biscuits out there.

Hard brittle biscotti, chewy crunchy gingernuts, snappy crumbly shortbread....
These ones I'm making today are gentle generous gingery bites. Not too crunchy, not way too soft, juuuuuust right for dunking and swallowing down with a mouthful of milk.






For these bikkies I wanted to use the ginger kibble from my holiday goodies. It's tiny little pieces of crystalised ginger that are just a bit too small to be sold on their own. If you don't have any of these you can chop up some larger pieces or substitute with other dried fruits/ nuts/ choc chips.

I also used some treacle for a nice depth of flavour and some vanilla extract with cardamon for an extra hint of spice. You can add a touch of the dried spice instead if you like, or maybe some cinnamon, nutmeg or tiny pinch of cloves instead. If you really want a ginger hit you could mix through a couple of teaspoons of dried ginger for  real bite

Big Ginger Softies

200gm Butter or alternate
2/3 cup Brown Sugar
2/3 cup Castor Sugar
2 Eggs
2 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup Ginger Kibble
2 Tab Treacle
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp psyllium fibre

(what's that you ask? Great information on psyllium husk and its use in gluten free baking can be found at this post by lovely Shauna from Gluten Free Girl and The Chef:
http://glutenfreegirl.com/what-is-psyllium-husk/ )





Beat together the sugars and butter until well combined, but not fluffy

Add in the eggs, vanilla and treacle

Stir together the flour, psyllium and baking powder then beat into the cookie mix. Don't overbeat, just make it a nice and cohesive

Toss in the ginger kibble and stir until distributed evenly

Place decent sized lumps of batter on baking trays- mine were almost golf ball sized, then bake at 160*C for about 20-23 minutes.
They will be going crispy around the edges, but still cakey in the middle. Don't worry though, they'll harden up on cooling so leave them on the tray until set then finish them off on a rack

See, perfect. But if you try and move them while hot or you will just end up with a big crumby but yummy mess

Serve the cookies with a big glass of frosty lactose free/soy/nut/alternative milk of choice, ready for dunking.

I love the crunch around the edges of these cookies where they are just starting to brown and the sugars caramelise, but then there's the softer middle with the nuggets of ginger as a chewy surprise.

Yummo!

So Dear Reader, do you like chewy, crunchy, bitety, or nice Big Softies like these for your milk and cookies treat?
























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