Spiced Lemon and Ginger Biscuits

Each year when I am picking Christmas cookies, I have often already seen some coolies that I know I want to make. In the spice category this year, I wanted to make these cookies, which come from one of the BBC cooking magazines that we get. As it is a British recipe, it calls for ingredients that you might not be as familiar with. Staying true to the original recipe, I kept the measurements by weight. I honestly think that this making baking easier (and more precise) but it does require that you have a scale.

I’ve kept the ingredients as the original recipe stated, with the exception of the sugar. The original recipe called for dark muscovado sugar. I used demerara sugar, which is kind of like sugar in the raw. Brown sugar probably would have worked better. You can find candied peel in the store, although don’t get that horrible bright red and green stuff. I bought my candied peel at an Italian market, and the quality is a lot better. I had stem ginger (in syrup) but if you can’t find that, you could use candied ginger.

This makes a small batch of cookies, about 2 dozen. My dough was very dry and crumbly, perhaps because of the different sugar that I used. I didn’t have much hope that the dough would come together, so I ended up adding and egg to the dough, which helped a lot. The ginger in these cookies is fantastic and the lemon in the glaze is very pronounced. These cookies aren’t super sweet, but they would add nice variety to any Christmas cookie tray.

Spiced Lemon and Ginger Biscuits

175 grams butter

85 grams brown sugar

1 egg

1-1/2 teaspoons ginger

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon coarsely ground pepper

Zest of 1 lemon

225 grams flour

50 grams candied lemon peel

50 grams stem ginger, chopped

100 grams powdered sugar

3-4 teaspoons lemon juice

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until combined. Add the egg, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, and lemon zest and mix on medium to combine. Add the flour and mix on low. Add the candied lemon peel and chopped stem ginger and stir on low until the dough comes together.

Divide the dough into halves. Shape the dough into two logs, each about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Slice the dough into 1/3” slices and place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for about 14 minutes, until set. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze: in a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice to make a thin glaze. Brush the glaze on the cooled cookies.

Recipe from BBC Good Food, Christmas 2018