Gingerbread Muffins

There are thousands of years of history in my spice cupboard. Wars were fought, enemies were made, and tenuous relationships with countries were strained over simple ingredients like cinnamon and nutmeg. It is hard for me to imagine that spices were worth more than gold at one time, creating a spice trade that drove the economy of ancient civilizations for hundreds of years. India was (and is) the greatest producer of spices in the world, producing a whopping 86% of the world's spices.

Sometimes I like to remind myself that the act of opening my under-stocked spice cupboard would have been like discovering a treasure chest to the wealthy of the past. This simple thought makes me feel incredibly affluent.

Truth be told, I was never really into spices growing up. Salt was the only spice I wanted (or needed), and I sprinkled it on my plain, buttered noodles. My picky eating habits didn't leave space for adventure and variety. It was years until I was ready to put a little pepper on my macaroni and cheese (and years further until I was ready to accept more foreign flavors). While I like to think that my tastes have outgrown the bland choices of my youth, plain, buttered noodles are still a part of my regular diet.

Perhaps we never completely outgrow our past.

The one place I don't mind a little extra spice is in baking (surprise, surprise, I know). I look forward to autumn and winter each year for an excuse to put warm, cozy spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves—into everything I eat. Gingerbread is perhaps the most spiced food I have made in a long, long time. When I was looking around at various recipes, I noticed a major commonality between them all. They all use ground ginger. Since I have never made anything gingerbread before, I had assumed they all included fresh ginger, straight from the root, and I was disappointed to find out otherwise. How could it truly be considered gingerbread without using the (easily accessibly) fresh version?

When I went out to create these gingerbread muffins, I made certain to use fresh ginger. And I think it makes all the difference in the world.

Gingerbread muffins make for a lovely addition to a cold, frosted morning. The muffins are spiced with the classic fall flavors along with a good dose of freshly grated ginger and a pinch of black pepper. Molasses harmonizes with the heavy spices, creating a muffin that doesn't require any add-ins to feel special. A simple spread of butter is all these muffins need to round out breakfast.

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Molasses Cookies with Ginger Cream Cheese Filling

You don't become a baker without developing a few bad habits along the way. Perhaps my most noticeable habit is that I forget to wear an apron. This wouldn't be a problem with most people. Sadly, the same cannot be said for me. When I worked in a bakery, the first business in the morning was to put on my trusty apron. It was more than just a flour barrier between my clothes and me; I relied on it to take the brunt of my clumsiness in the kitchen (graceful, I am not) and often used it as a towel to wipe my hands when a customer came calling. By the end of the day, the apron was hardly recognizable.

Even though I am a home-baker now, with a closet full of adorable aprons, I don't remember I have them until my pants resemble a powdered sugar nightmare. It's a work in progress.

I'm a little ashamed to admit bad habit #2. I don't own a kitchen timer. When I worked in the bakery, it was standard procedure to never set a timer for any baked goods. At first this seemed odd to me, but the ovens were passed so frequently to reach the kitchen sink and food was so strongly on the mind that the entire time I worked there, we only burned a handful of items. I like to think I've developed a "baker's intuition" in my own kitchen, justifying the fact that I never remember to check the time when I put something in the oven. The truth is that sometimes I have excellent intuition and, well, sometimes I do not.

I have gotten quite well at slightly over-baking a little bit of everything. Can we keep this our little secret, though?

Perhaps most shameful of all is that I am lousy when it comes to doing the dishes after wreaking havoc in the kitchen. My boyfriend could write you a novel revealing the horrors of kitchen aftermath. Always full of excuses, I complain to anyone within listening distance that after baking and photographing (and eating) whatever I've made, I'm much too tired to wash the bowls in the sink. No amount of sad eyes and pouting will convince them to clean up after me (I've tried). This continues to be a battle for me, but I am getting better at it. Slowly.

What are your bad kitchen habits?

Molasses Cookies with Ginger Cream Cheese Filling are spiced with everything nice. The cookies bake up soft and cake-like, with a strong molasses flavor and a touch of cinnamon. The cookies are sandwiched together with a cream cheese frosting spiced with ground ginger. Whether you think of these cookie sandwiches as whoopie pies or not, one thing is for certain—it's hard to stop at one. I like to twist open the sandwiches and eat the halves one at a time just to make them last a little longer.

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Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I want you to take in these words, close your eyes, and visualize their meaning. Feel the warmth from the oven as you peer at them baking. Breathe in their scent, imagine the taste, the texture, and let it linger softly on your tongue. Chocolate Chip Cookies will always be my ultimate cookie. Certainly sugar, shortbread, and oatmeal raisin all have a time and a place, but they have never carved out such a sweet place in my heart like dear chocolate chip.

And oh what a sweet place it is.

In my year and a half of blogging, I have never shared a chocolate chip cookie recipe with you. There was a reason for this. I've shared a variation here or there, but you don't mess around with the true classic. When I was going to share a chocolate chip cookie recipe with you, I didn't want it to be just any cookie. I wanted it to stand out, to be special, to be different.

A good chocolate chip cookie has a few requirements. A great chocolate chip cookie has many more. I know some of you prefer them thin and crispy, but today's recipe is all about the thick and chewy chocolate chip cookie.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe comes to me from a close family friend. It is her secret recipe, sought after by everyone blessed enough to try one of her cookies (me included). Fortunately, she has given me permission to share her secret with you. I won't reveal my source, however. The woman has an image to uphold (and a secret recipe to stay "secret").

This particular recipe has a slight twist. It is made with vegetable shortening instead of butter, which keeps the cookies wonderfully thick (cookies with a high butter content spread out very thin). The cookie also uses a couple tablespoons of mild molasses for one specific purpose. The molasses keeps the inside of the cookies soft for days (if they last that long, of course), without lending a distinct flavor. Five days on my kitchen counter and these cookies are as soft as the day I made them.

These soft and chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you'll ever need. With just the right ratio of chocolate chips to cookie dough, the cookie maintains a very soft center while the edges stay lightly browned and crispy. These are lovely dipped into a glass of milk or eaten warm and gooey, straight out of the oven.

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