These Primrose Bakery ginger sparkle cookies are so delicious and are really sparkly! Although I’m sharing this in December, they would make a wonderful treat all year round for a special occasion. Easy to make, they are a perfect bake to make with children too! They are a great festive treat to enjoy as you wrap up your presents – something that I shall be doing a bit last-minute this year!

This recipe is taken from Primrose Bakery Christmas, which makes a brilliant gift (affiliate link).

Ingredients (makes 15-20 cookies)

280g plain flour

2 1/2 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp salt

180g unsalted butter, at room temperature

225g golden caster sugar

60g molasses sugar or dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tbsp water

80g coarse or granulated sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C (fan) / gas mark 4. Lightly grease a couple of baking trays and line with parchment paper.

2. Sift the flours, spices, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until well combined.

4. On a low speed, add all the sifted dry ingredients and mix until the dough just comes together. Add the water and mix to combine. Wrap the dough in cling film and form into a long sausage shape, before leaving to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

5. Put the course or granulated sugar into a bowl. Cute the dough into 15-20 evenly sized pieces the roll each one into a ball. Roll each dough ball in the bowl of sugar, then place them evenly spaced out on the trays (allow at least 3cm to allow the cookies to spread when baking).

6. Bake for 15-18 minute, until the edges of the cookies are slightly firm and the centre is still a little soft. Let them cool on the trays for about 5 minutes before removing.

7. These cookies are delicious warm, so enjoy once they have cooled a little more. Keep the rest in an air tight tin. Enjoy!

Are you ready for Christmas?!

I certainly don’t feel like I am! I’m hoping to make another batch of Primrose Bakery ginger sparkle cookies if I have the time… If you need another last-minute idea, how about these wonderful biscuits?

If you’re in the North East of England and you need a last-minute gift idea, how about booking a place on the Craftitude workshop? Hosted by me and the wonderful Sarah from Simple Happy Life on 1st February 2020 at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle upon Tyne. Click here for tickets and more details – we’d love to see you there!

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Long-time readers of my blog will know that I love picking up recipes here and there, and that I love the Waitrose recipe cards. I only ever really pop in there for the odd thing because it’s near to where I work at the day job, so I always look and see what the recipes are for the month. I knew I’d have to give these ginger spiced crunch biscuits a try! Tom is a huge fan of anything with ginger, but we often find that biscuits are nice but without that real spicy kick. But these are perfect!

These biscuits have a crunchy (but not too crunchy) outside with a chewy centre, which is delicious. If you’re looking for more of a ginger cookie, just leave out the bicarbonate of soda. I did this with my first batch because I thought I had some in the cupboard, but I didn’t! But we actually really loved them with the slightly less crunchy, cookie-like texture. I also had a little play around with the recipe and added some dark chocolate to some of these, and the combination works really well.

Ingredients (makes 24)

75g (roughly 4 balls) stem ginger in syrup, plus 3 tbsp of the syrup

150g soft light brown sugar

150g unsalted butter (or margarine), softened

200g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 tbsp ground ginger

Optional: 100g dark chocolate (I used Green and Black’s 85%)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/Gas mark 3. Line two large baking sheets with baking parchment.

2. Chop the stem ginger into very small dice and set aside. Place the brown sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl and, using an electric handheld mixer, beat together until creamy.

3. Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, cinnamon and ground ginger into the bowl. Stir in the stem ginger and syrup, until everything comes together to form a dough. Tip onto a work surface and gently knead until smooth.

4. Break up the dough into 24 even-sized pieces and roll into balls. Place 6 on each of the prepared baking sheets, spaced well apart. Flatten each ball a little, then bake for 15 minutes until golden. They will still feel a little soft but will firm up as they cool. Repeat with the remaining dough until you have used up all the mixture.

Adding a little dark chocolate makes these ginger spiced crunch biscuits extra special. Melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a pan of boiling water. Place the biscuits on a sheet of greaseproof paper on top of a cooling rack to decorate them. If you don’t want loads of chocolate, you could drizzle a little of the melted chocolate over the top like I have done with the ones above. Or, you could dip them in so that half of the biscuit is covered in chocolate. I used a spoon to do this as the chocolate wasn’t that deep in the bowl! Leave to set in the fridge – the greaseproof paper will easily peel off once the chocolate is set.

Freeze the biscuit dough!

According to the recipe card, the uncooked dough freezes well. Roll it into balls, flatten slightly and freeze layered up between baking parchment. To bake, take out the number you want and bake from frozen for 3-4 minutes longer. Excellent! Time to enjoy one of these with a cuppa Hope you have a great weekend!

If you missed out on a recipe card, you can also find the original recipe here.

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