Motivational cookies

Okay, so it's still a bit early to get all Christmasy on you, but I couldn't resit making these cookies today. I had a pact with myself: finish my thousand word target and I could leave the laptop behind and make a dash for the kitchen.

I managed it...but I got a bit ahead of myself. The pull of the mixing bowl was too strong. I made these at the five hundred word mark. Oops! I like to think of them as motivational cookies, because I did at least get the words done, if with a little pause in the middle.

I went out and did a shop today, and finally broke the no supermarket resolution. It turns out that there are just some things you can't find unless you give in. Oh well. As N reminded me, we've managed right up until the festive season, and we constantly support our local community, so don't think anyone will begrudge us a sneaky trip to Tesco for dried cranberries, veggie sausages, soya milk and pecans.

Anyway, with that guilty confession out of my system let's get to the good stuff: cookies! In celebration of having dried cranberries in the cupboard again I decided to try out and idea I had for a dried cranberry, white chocolate and ginger cookie. In a little while I should be participating in this, and wanted to test out some ideas. I took the basic idea of what should be in a cookie and experimented. I used grated white chocolate and less sugar than usual, to spread a subtle creamy sweetness through the cookie to combat the tartness of the berries, then added some ginger for a bit of festive heat.

They're untried as yet - they're cooling on the side - but yet again we're off to a match tonight, so no doubt they'll get tried at half time. I'll report back of course.


In the meantime here's the recipe:

Cranberry, white chocolate and ginger cookies - Makes 21 small cookies

100g unsalted butter, softened
75g brown sugar
175g Self-raising flour
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g dried cranberries
50 white chocolate, grated
2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 180C

Beat the butter until soft and then add the sugar and cream together. Add the egg and vanilla essence, then the flour, cranberries, chocolate and ginger. Finally add the milk and make into a stiff, but sticky dough. More milk can be added if it's too stiff.

Place tablespoons of dough on lined or greased baking trays and place in the preheated over for 15 mins, rotating the trays half way through cooking.

Cool on a wire rack before eating - if you can wait that long!

VERDICT: So we tried these at half time as I anticipated. My response? They're "alright". Not bad or anything, just not what I was hoping for. The ginger is barely there, and the grated white chocolate didn't work as well as I'd hoped. They're a nice cookie, but I will work on them before making again. I reckon just chunks of chocolate and a whole load more ginger might be what's needed.