The fool that I was I only discovered the wonderful thing that is Tamarind just a few months ago, while making a delicious salad with watermelon and duck breast, that I'll be sure to share whenever watermelon shows up in stores again (seriously missing it fiercely right now). In that I used a paste version of tamarind, which you can find in any supermarket I believe, but perhaps look in the international / Asian section. Tamarind has a lovely sweet-sour taste that goes well with a variety of dishes.So, when I was in the Asian supermarket a while ago, when I saw Tamarind with seeds still in it, I couldn't resist grabbing it. Then it lay on my shelf for a few weeks until the opportunity arose to use it! And what's a better cause than cookies? On that same shelf I had some leftover candied ginger, from a previous haul in the same Asian supermarket, but already partially sacrificed in an awesome ginger, white chocolate cheesecake. With those two goodies I set to work to create these tasty and special Tamarind Ginger Cookies. Before we start though, let me tell you that using the paste you just get at the supermarket would be much easier, because removing those seeds were a pain!
I made these alongside some good ol' fashioned brownies and some lemon cheesecake cookies, let me know if you'd like a post about those as well. They were delicious too of course, just a bit less special. I made all these goodies as little gift for my friends at new years (alongside the earrings with origami flower I posted about earlier, and a few other things).
Anyway on to the cookies...
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter, softened (125 g / 4.5 oz / 0.5 cup)
- Granulated white sugar (250 g / 8.8 oz / 1.25 cups) (Next time, trying dark)
- Tamarind paste/concentrate (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- Plain flour (250 g / 8.8 oz)
- Candied/Glacé/Crystallized ginger (200 g / 7 oz)
- 1 Egg, room temperature
- Bicarbonate of soda (3/4 teaspoon = tsp)
- Ras el Hanout (2 tsp)
- Granulated white sugar (250 g / 8.8 oz / 1.25 cups) (Next time, trying dark)
- Tamarind paste/concentrate (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- Plain flour (250 g / 8.8 oz)
- Candied/Glacé/Crystallized ginger (200 g / 7 oz)
- 1 Egg, room temperature
- Bicarbonate of soda (3/4 teaspoon = tsp)
- Ras el Hanout (2 tsp)
- Ground Cinnamon (1 tsp)
- Ground Nutmeg (0.5 tsp)
- Ground ginger (2 tsp)
- Salt (0.5 tsp)
- Ground Nutmeg (0.5 tsp)
- Ground ginger (2 tsp)
- Salt (0.5 tsp)
Instructions
- Let butter soften and let all ingredients come to room temperature if they came out of the fridge. It's not a super necessary step, but it'll make mixing ingredients a lot easier, as well as baking.
- Preheat your oven at 180°C / 350°F
- Mix softened butter, sugar, tamarind and egg until smooth. I just used my hands because in my pitiful dorm kitchen I don't have a stand mixer unfortunately, but if you have that, beat it with that.
- Cut up your candied ginger in really small chunks. I have an obsession with cutting things very finely so mine were about really tiny (1 mm), but try to go quite small, especially because they do tend to stick together a bit. To avoid this, add them in small batches, mix it in well, before cutting up the next batch, mixing it in, and so on.
- Beat in all your spices. If you don't have ras el hanout, that's fine, we already added a lot of its ingredients in separately with the other spices, but if you want add about 1/4 tsp each of ground up kardemom, cumin, coriander seed and turmeric instead of the ras el hanout.
- Slowly add in your flower and bicarbonate (be careful with the bicarbonate, too much makes your cookies have a bitter after-taste!).
- Cover your oven baking plate with parchment / non-stick baking paper.
- Roll walnut-sized balls of the dough and spread them out (5 cm / 2 inches apart) on your baking tray. They become about 5 cm / 2 inches in diameter normally.
- Bake them for 15 minutes. I have a ridiculously small oven, so it took me a while to bake them all. I used two trays at ones. Put the first batch in, 8 minutes later but the second batch below that, 8 minutes later took the first batch out, moved the second to the top row, added the third underneath that and so on until they were all done.
- Let cool and enjoy!
- Preheat your oven at 180°C / 350°F
- Mix softened butter, sugar, tamarind and egg until smooth. I just used my hands because in my pitiful dorm kitchen I don't have a stand mixer unfortunately, but if you have that, beat it with that.
- Cut up your candied ginger in really small chunks. I have an obsession with cutting things very finely so mine were about really tiny (1 mm), but try to go quite small, especially because they do tend to stick together a bit. To avoid this, add them in small batches, mix it in well, before cutting up the next batch, mixing it in, and so on.
- Beat in all your spices. If you don't have ras el hanout, that's fine, we already added a lot of its ingredients in separately with the other spices, but if you want add about 1/4 tsp each of ground up kardemom, cumin, coriander seed and turmeric instead of the ras el hanout.
- Slowly add in your flower and bicarbonate (be careful with the bicarbonate, too much makes your cookies have a bitter after-taste!).
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| I could only fit 9 per tray in my crappy dorm oven,and even that was a stretch :( |
- Roll walnut-sized balls of the dough and spread them out (5 cm / 2 inches apart) on your baking tray. They become about 5 cm / 2 inches in diameter normally.
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| Look at those cookies go, mmm! |
- Let cool and enjoy!
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| First two finished trays, I had to move them to plates to cool further 'cause I only had the two trays. |
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| A plate full of delicious tamarind ginger cookies, all for myself. The rest I packaged in some tissue paper to give away, along with the other two baked goods: brownies and lemon cheesecake bars. |
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