A fews weeks ago, I had a craving for ginger biscuits, I searched and found this recipe on-line and voila, today thoses ginger biscuits materialised!

They are really simple to make. I made them while my dinner of homemade potato and leek stew was cooking. The recipe is meant to be enough for 40 small biscuits but I only made 18 and the dough is in the fridge and I’ll use it at the weekend.

I limited the sugar to 100g as I find these recipes generally too sweet for my liking. This did mean that I perhaps ate more than I should have when then had come out of the oven and cooled. Oh well, you only live once.

They are tasty, the right side of crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside – which makes me wonder if I’m not just eating ginger cookies…

Thus ensued a short conversation between Nacho and I

Me: “Do you know the difference between a cookie and biscuit?”

Nacho:”Yes, cookies are a bit softer”

Me: “Yes. Yeah”

Nacho: “In Spain they are called one thing – galletas

Me: “Ah, they don’t get into that whole is it a cookie or a biscuit? conversation”

I walk back into the kitchen and call out

Me: “The first batch are like cookies and the 2nd batch that when into a slightly hotter oven are harder like biscuits”

Nacho: ” So you have biscookies?”

Me:”Yes, or bookies. Or Coocuits”

Me:” Hmmm. Hmmm.”

Me: “What’s the spanish word for ginger, Nacho?”

Nacho:”jengibre“

Me:” so I’ve made jengibre galletas?”

Nacho: ” No, galletas de jengibre“

Me: “well that’s what I’ll name them galletas de jenigbre

Ingredients

• 340g/12oz plain flour
• 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 level tsps ground ginger
• 100g/4oz butter
• 160g light brown sugar
• 4 tblsp golden syrup
• 1 large egg, beaten

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
• Line the baking trays with grease proof paper.
• Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Rub in butter with finger tips until it looks like bread crumbs. Stir in the sugar then the syrup and the beaten egg. Bring it all together to form a smooth pastry dough.
• On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to be about 8mm thick. Using a 2” straight-sided round cutter, cut out biscuits until all the biscuit dough is used up. Place on baking trays ensuring enough room is left for slight expansion of the biscuit.
• Chill on the baking trays for 20 minutes in fridge.
• Cook for 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from tray with palette knife and place on a cooling rack.