Soft and chewy sugar-coated ginger cookies overflowing with cookie butter!
When it comes to the traditional holiday cookies, you’ve got your frosted sugar cookies, russian teacakes, snickerdoodles, chocolate pixies (or crinkles), spritz cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and of course, ginger snaps. Ginger snaps, however, were always my least favorite. Where were the chocolate chips? The frosting? The excessive sweetness? To me, ginger snaps were basically a dog biscuit disguised as a cookie.
So this week, I decided to give the middle child of all cookies a makeover. An ooey gooey, mouth-wateringly delicious makeover…
Tell me. Have you ever seen anything more satisfying or tantalizing than this?
This is actually my third installment in the “stuffed” cookies department. If you can remember, I made these Triple Chocolate Nutella-Stuffed Pudding Cookies a while back.
I also introduced you to my Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookie.
These cookies definitely aren’t your traditional ginger snap. They’re not even a snap, really. These cookies are ultra soft and exquisitely chewy. No crispy, crunchy cookies in this kitchen! Besides, you really do need a good thick dough to hold all of that luscious cookie butter inside.
And while we’re on the topic of cookie butter, if you’ve never heard of it, OMG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??? It’s like peanut butter, but instead of ground peanuts, it’s ground speculoos cookies, AKA cinnamon-spiced cookies. It’s smooth, creamy, and tastes similar to graham crackers. It also has a subtle pretzel taste to me. Just like peanut butter, it tastes good on pretty much ANYthing! Just don’t try broccoli. Bad mistake…
In my opinion, ginger cookies tend to be a little overpowering and somewhat bitter, which is why I took it easy on the ginger as well as the molasses. There’s only 3 tablespoons of molasses in the whole recipe, and I even added a little bit of maple syrup to counteract the bitterness of the molasses.
Stuffing these cookies is surprisingly very simple! The key is to first scoop out dollops of the cookie butter (about 2 teaspoons per dollop), and place them onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Freeze them until solid (about 45 minutes), so that they’re hard, thus easier to wrap the cookie dough around.
Once they’re wrapped in the dough, I also like to place them in the freezer for about 20 minutes to assure that they don’t spread too much. This step probably isn’t too crucial if you’ve chilled your dough thoroughly before wrapping it around the cookie butter. I’m just a tad obsessive when it comes to making sure my cookies bake up nice and thick.
Speaking of nice and thick, these ginger cookies don’t take long to bake–just 8-10 minutes and they should look nice and puffed. They’re done when the edges are set and the center looks a little underdone. You’ll want them to cool for at least 10-15 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring them to a wire rack. Not only does the filling need some time to set up, but the residual heat will finish baking the cookies.
Patience will definitely pay off when you take the first bite to release a flood of warm cookie butter.
The warm flavors of the soft and cinnamony ginger dough combined with the smooth and sweetly spiced cookie butter center is heaven on earth. Half of the fun is in breaking these soft cookies open to reveal the luscious ooze of cookie butter.
FYI, after about an hour or so of cooling, the cookie butter centers will firm up to their original thicker consistency. BUT if you still want that awesome ooze action, just pop one in the microwave for about 8-10 seconds. Either way, these cookies will remain soft, chewy, and mouthwateringly ooey gooey in the center!
Cookie Butter Stuffed Ginger Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup cookie butter*
- 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons butter softened
- ¼ cup dark or light brown sugar packed
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 Tablespoons molasses
- 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Scoop out dollops of cookie butter (about 2 teaspoons per dollop) onto a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Freeze cookie butter dollops until solid, about 45 minutes.
- Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, spices, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and 1/3 cup of granulated sugar for 2 to 3 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, followed by the molasses, maple syrup, and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the 2 Tablespoons of granulated sugar in a small bowl.
- Use your hands to scoop out about 2 Tablespoons of dough, flatten, place a cookie butter dollop in the center, wrap the dough around the dollop, then roll into a ball, making sure that the dough is fully sealed around the cookie butter. Roll in sugar. Place onto prepared baking sheet, and flatten cookie slightly. Repeat with the remaining cookie butter dollops and dough.**
- Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until cookies look puffed and edges are set. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
2 comments
Drooling. I am actually drooling. Cookie butter and gingerbread may be the new peanut butter and jelly, if you ask me! Love these!
It’s almost impossible not to drool when the cookie itself is drooling with cookie butter 😉