Honey Lemon Ginger Molasses Marble Cookies for a Cookie Swap with Food Bloggers!

It’s the holiday season and that means cookies! Insane amount of cookies! All you need to do is look around the web and see that cookies are what’s on everyone’s mind, with the holidays coming up. I’m a little behind on the obligatory cookie post, but don’t fear, there will be many cookie posts coming up as I’ve been to a couple of cookie swaps recently. The one that my friend Annelies hosted, had me developing (at the last minute) these Honey Lemon Ginger Molasses Marble Cookies, which I have to say, I’m pretty proud of.

Annelies is a food blogger that I met about six months or so at the Share our Strength Food Blogger Bake Sale. She and I were the only people who brought gluten free goods to the event, and so we bonded over how people with gluten sensitivities tend to get left out of the events like bake sales. Neither her nor I had any issues with gluten, but we both like to make sure that there was something for everyone at events like that. We fast became friends.

The cookie swap is a time-honored gathering wherein people bring a batch of cookies to the party, and then leave with a selection of other people cookies. It was a little intimidating to go to THIS specific cookie swap at Annelies had invited a gaggle of food bloggers to the party, thereby raising the stakes of what I should bring.

Compounding this dilemma was that I was just recovering from a particularly nasty sinus infection after my worldwind Thanksgiving down in LA. In fact, I was at one point considering not going to the party, but how in the world could I pass on a party whose entire purpose was to eat cookies AND have me walking away with more cookies?

So I buckled down and developed these cookies on the fly. My initial thought was that I would layer the doughs together, roll them and then get a super marbled cookie. But the dough was way too sticky and soft even after chilling them overnight, which led me to reworking them into drop cookies.

The party was super fun though! Our host Annelies made Mexican Wedding Cookies which was originally her intention to make for her own wedding (she was recently married to her love, back in October, right after the BlogHer Food conference). I had actually offered to help her with making Mexican Wedding Cookies, but she realized in the week before the wedding that the Mexican Wedding Cookies thing just wasn’t going to happen. So she dropped that idea. This cookie swap party was the perfect excuse for her to make them.

Heather showed up Scottish shortbread cookies, a recipe that she had to earn from her grandmother, by baking the shortbreads, and then sending them to her, for her approval. Apparently it took two or three rounds for her grandmother to finally say that they were worthy! And after taking a bite of one, I understood why. Crumbly and buttery melt in your mouth wonderfulness!

Stephanie tweeted beforehand that she was totally scared of baking cookies, which is ridiculous as anyone who has ever visited her website will gasp in awe of all the gorgeous cakes and pastries that she makes. When I pointed this out, she tweeted back that she has no problems make wedding cakes but she NEVER makes cookies. I just told her to make small pastries and call them cookies. She took that to heart and made an adaptation of David Lebovitz’s Madeleines, giving them her own twist, giving them a meyer lemon and rosemary glaze as well as a berry pumpkin glaze. Me, I don’t even own a Madeleine pan.

Jennifer showed up with darling little ginger cranberry cookies rolled in ginger sugar. She had recently won a giant Electrolux oven unit at the Food Buzz Fest but I didn’t have a chance to ask her whether these cookies were baked in the new oven or not (I’m thinking not, as she mentioned that her kitchen is tiny, and probably wouldn’t fit the oven unit that she won). The cookies were snappy and chewy, just the way I like my ginger cookies!

Anita and her husband Mike were the people that initially organized and ran the Share our Strength Bake Sale where I met Annelies. Anita is actually a professional baker, who went to Tante Marie culinary school and the author of two cookbooks, one of which, The Field Guide to Cookies, led her to being a part of an article on baking cookies this New York Times article that I uncovered while doing research on cookie swaps. So it is no surprise that her Pecan Polvorones with Jam Filling turned out amazing. Anita says that lately she has been obsessed with the texture of Polovorones which are similar to the Mexican Wedding Cookie. She used some of Tell Tale Preserve Company Fig Sangria Chocolate Jam for the cookies, a place that she’s currently working at (with famed fancy pants pastry chef William Werner).

And that left my cookies. Soft, slightly cakey, the super spicy ginger molasses dough is tempered by the honey extra lemony cookie dough in these marble cookies, with just a little bit of sugar crunch. Perfect for the holidays, and perfect to impress a bunch of food bloggers. I hope.

Lemon Honey Ginger Molasses Marble Cookie
This recipe requires you to make two separate types of dough and then marble them together. You can easily just make one of the cookie dough and make a single batch of just Lemon Honey cookies or of just Ginger Molasses Cookies – both of which are excellent. Keep in mind though that they were developed to work in tandem. I have notes at the end of each dough recipe that tells you how to adapt the dough to just make them plain dough cookies by themselves.

For Ginger Molasses cookie dough
210 g all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp cloves
113 g (1 stick) of salted butter
125 g dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp of full flavor molasses
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 large egg

1. Take a whisk and combine the flour, baking soda, and spices in a medium bowl thoroughly.

2. Place butter and sugar in mixing bowl and cream the two together until the mixture is smooth and sugar is full incorporated

3. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula, add molasses and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Do the same with the egg, making sure to scrape down sides.

4. Add flour mixture and mix completely until dough has full incorporated the flour and you don’t see any butter lumps or streaks.

5. Wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.

Note. I intentionally made this dough super spicy because I knew it would be tempered by the Lemon Honey dough it is marbled with. But to make this as a Ginger Molasses cookies, double the base recipe (ie. use 420g of AP flour, 2 1/2 tsp of baking soda, etc), but adjust the spices measurements to the following: 2 tsp of cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper, ½1/2tsp of all spice, 1/4 tsp of cloves.

For Lemon Honey cookie dough
210 g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
zest from 3 medium sized lemons
113 g (1 stick) of salted butter
125 g white granulated sugar
2 Tbsp of local raw honey
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
1 large egg

1. Take a whisk and combine the flour, baking soda, and spices in a medium bowl thoroughly.

2. Place butter and sugar in mixing bowl and cream the two together until the mixture is smooth and sugar is full incorporated

3. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula, add molasses and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Do the same with the egg, making sure to scrape down sides.

4. Add flour mixture and mix completely until dough has full incorporated the flour and you don’t see any butter lumps or streaks.

5. Wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.

Note. I intentionally made this dough extra lemony because I knew it would be tempered by the Ginger Molasses dough. But to make this as a Lemon Honey cookie, double the base recipe (ie. use 420g of AP flour 4 tsp of baking powder, etc) but use the zest of 4 lemons and use 1 1/2 tsp of lemon extract.

To make Marble Cookies
1/2 cup of white granulated sugar
1 Tbsp sparkling sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Mix the two sugars together in a bowl (if using sparkling sugar) and place in small bowl.

2.Pinch two 1/4 tablespoon of ginger molasses cookie dough and two 1/4 tablespoon of lemon honey cookie dough. You should have four small balls of dough.

3. Line the dough up in a row, alternating dough, and then press together.

4.Now roll the dough into a a 1” ball. Your dough should look marbled.

5. Roll dough in sugar and the place on a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Continue until cookie sheet is filled, placing cookies 2” apart from each other.

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the “lemon” part of the cookie starts to brown a bit on the edges. Cool on sheet for 2-3 minutes before moving to a wire rack for further cooling.

Makes about 60 cookies.