ginger, choc & walnut cookies

I do not like feeling swamped. But, for me, even worse than the feeling of being swamped is the feeling of being listless. Helpless. Uninspired and unmotivated. I can churn out one brilliant idea after the other when I am swamped, I will hustle towards an end goal and then slam that final ball into that final hoop before collapsing in a puddle of exhaustion and selfcongratulatory thoughts. But when I am listless - oh! I crumple into a ball of miserable ineptitude and discard all thoughts of ever recovering. Usually until I get a sound butt-kicking anyway.

Alternatively, and this has been my recent therapy, I stop. And then I bake. I fold and knead and shape. I chop and taste and watch things grow from little bits of flubbery dough into crisp, warm treats that bring delight to the faces I love. And, if I am feeling particularly listless, I add zing. Like the ginger in these delightful little cookies. You will munch and crunch and feel oh-so-at-home and then your eyes will open and a little ginger-infused grin will appear from the sudden spice. Just lovely.

choc, ginger & walnut cookies
adapted from the AWW's Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits

ingredients:

125g butter
¼C white sugar
¾C brown sugar (lightly packed)
½tsp vanilla
1 egg
1¾C self raising flour
½tsp salt
100g chocolate chips
50g walnuts
50g glace ginger

method:

1. Cube your butter. If you are feeling listless, you may wish to actually cube it. In cubes. Alternatively, you may wish to hack at it with whatever knife you have handy until it is in little pieces. I am more likely to do the former. But, as they say, each to their own.

creamed butter & sugars + egg

2. Toss your perfectly cubed (or not) butter into the bowl of your mixer. Then add the sugars (brown and white - let's not discriminate now). You want to beat them until they are creamy and smooth and not-at-all granulated.

3. Add the vanilla and the egg and beat again until just combined. We want to make sure the egg is incorporated. None of this gross egg-streamy-bitty-thing.

folding in the flour

4. Next up, the dry ingredients. Sift the flour and salt into the mixer bowl and mix through with a wooden spoon or spatula. It will get stiffer near the end, but persevere. You are trying to get-yourself-out-of-this-rut-dammit! Also, with perseverence comes a fantastically toned upper arm. You will have to work the other one out at the gym to balance yourself out.

chopped ginger, walnuts & chocolate

5. We want to do a bit more dicing while the oven is heating up. About 180C should do it. Don't worry if you forget. I'll remind you later. Now, where were we...? Ahh! Chopping! Ginger into bearable chunks. Run a knife through your walnuts a couple of times. We want to know they're there without knowing that they're there if you know what I mean. Discernable but not OTT. You don't need to chop your chocolate if you're using chocolate chips. I used a combination of chocolate chips & lindt bittersweet to make a 100g total. I chopped the latter.

roll, squish, repeat

6. Toss your chopped ingredients haphazardly (or meticulously, as you like) into the mixing bowl and use those (now toned) upper arms and a spatula / wooden spoon to mix them in as evenly as you can. Don't go crazy if they aren't exactly uniformly spread out. That's just how life goes ok? Now breathe.

7. Grab dessert-spoon-sized balls of mix from the bowl and roll them about in your hand briefly before plonking them down on a well oiled tray and giving them a satisfying smoosh with your fingers. Lather, rinse, repeat. (Dessert-spoon-sized balls are halfway between a giant gobstopper & a pingpong ball, just in case you were confused). The cookies will spread just a little, so give them a bit of breathing room. You'll end up with about 40-45 depending on the size of your cookies.

just baked and cooling (if you can wait)

8. Your oven should, by now, have hotted up to 180C. No? Well stick it on now, and don't beat yourself up about forgetting. We'll stick the cookies in for about 10 minutes, a little longer if you like your cookies nice and brown and a little crunchier. 10 mins will give you a chewy, just cooked cookie.

9. In the 10 mins they bake for, you can wash up that one bowl and two beaters and one wooden spoon / spatula you used, or you can sit in front of your oven door and just watch the cookies rise. And oh! How comforted you now are, and not even the slightest bit listless. And ahh, how warm as well. Because that is what ginger does to you. Ditto chocolate.