Amy recommended these to me. We almost made them on our trip to Twinland, but we couldn't find crystallized ginger locally and we ran out of time. I decided to make them while visiting friends in Memphis over Christmas. During a trip to Wild Oats (which is now owned by Whole Foods), we looked for the ginger in the bulk food section, but they were out! I ended up finding bags of it elsewhere. I actually found organic crystallized ginger in two different places, but the price difference was astounding! Finding ground ginger was even more difficult because they were out of it in their popular spice brand bottle and in their spice bulk section. Eventually I found a bottle of it. I guess ginger is popular around the holidays!
We cooked these late on Christmas Day. The only odd thing about this recipe was that it said you could use a 1 Tbs cookie scoop to make the balls, a small ice cream scoop, or two tablespoons. Your tool of choice for this matter definitely impacts the yield! It said about 4 dozen cookies and we got 23. These cookies turned out perfect!
We cooked a lot over the visit. While staying there nearly a week, we only went out to eat once, and that was to Tejas de Brazil. Yum yum yum! I made multigrain pancakes and the apple topping, and the braised chicken with anchovies. I also purchased a finecooking.com account (and already had a cooksillustrated.com one) so now I don't have to have any of my magazines with me when wanting to cook something special.
One of the great things about visiting my friend in Memphis was learning some tips from her on food. She buys a lot of her food at Wild Oats from the bulk section and stores it in big containers in her pantry. Instead of pure cane sugar, she usually uses raw sugar, but she has containers for both. She made lots of cookies and fudge and separated them into colorful tissue papered tins to hand out to neighbors and friends. She also asked me for rosemary from my garden so she could grow her own. I'm glad I brought a lot of rosemary because we used it quite a bit in our cooking! Looking online, I learned that there are better ways to get a cutting to grow roots, and I also learned some tips for keeping rosemary healthy.
- Double Ginger Crackles (Fine Cooking, issue 75, p.45)
