What better way to spend your Sunday afternoon than whipping up a batch of these yummy, gingery, creative looking cookies.  The “earthquake” look comes from rolling the balls of chilled dough in icing sugar before baking them.  The crucial part comes with making sure that dough is super cold before you roll the cookies, or you end up with ginger earthquake pancakes!

These cookies are so more-ish, you better make sure you bake a few, once your friends catch on to these, they’ll be begging for more!

Prep Time ~ 2 hours (including chilling time) Cooking time ~ 15 mins a tray

Makes approx 100 cookies (you can very easily halve this recipe if you don’t want as many!)

Ginger Earthquake Cookies

200g butter

2/3c Golden Syrup

3c Plain Flour

1 1/2c Brown Sugar

2 eggs, lightly whisked

4 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1/2c icing sugar

1. Combine the butter and golden syrup in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until butter melts and mixture is well combined. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl.

2. Add the flour, brown sugar, egg, ginger, mixed spice, cloves and bicarbonate of soda and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 80 minutes or until cool and firm.

3. Preheat oven to 180C. Line oven trays with baking paper. Sift the icing sugar onto a small plate. Roll half teaspoons of mixture into balls (think cherry sized) and roll in icing sugar. Place on the lined trays, 6cm apart, allowing room for spreading.

4. Bake in preheated oven, swapping trays halfway through cooking, for 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from oven and set aside on trays to cool completely.

If you’re finding these cookies are spreading too quickly when they’re baking, chill your dough even further, when you’re rolling them, the dough should be quite firm, and not be sticky.

My only other warning, is that if you’re anything like I am, where quality control is crucial, that taste testing this batter raw is not a great idea! Try if you like, but you’ve been warned 🙂

Happy Baking ~ LC