Honey Gingersnap Cookies
Today we enjoy Honey Gingersnap Cookies at an inn called “Easing the Badger” in Illian, a coastal town in the Westlands. These crunchy cookies call to be paired with a big mug of cold milk or hot tea, rather than the ginger-spiced wine often served with Illianer meals.
There will be plenty of good music and story-telling from the bards and gleemen who take the stage at the front of the inn’s common room. We might even stay late enough for a game of dice or two. The famous Thom Merrilin himself has been known to perform here when passing through. Will he be here tonight, and maybe favor us with reciting the epic “Prophecies of the Dragon”? The room is full of laughing patrons and the energy is a happy one. Tonight we are all strangers who become friends for an evening, enjoying wines, ale, baked fish, and plenty of stew.
These gingersnap cookies use honey instead of the molasses we normally see. The symbol on Illian’s flag is nine bees in celebration of their local beekeepers, and honey is used frequently in both sweet and savory recipes here. Honey brings a delicious rich flavor to these cookies, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Plus, bees are awesome. Illianers prefer to use their local olive oil in these cookies, but I find the taste of avocado oil to be milder. Either way these lovely cookies are dairy-free with no substitutions needed, and perfect for holiday gifting.
(Fans of the Wheel of Time show on Amazon Prime, look for the nine bees on soldiers’ uniforms at the beginning of Season 1, episode 7! Our favorite sea captain Bayle Domon is also from Illian and I bet he brings a stash of these cookies back to the ship every time he arrives at a home port.)
Honey Gingersnap Cookies
Equipment
- Cookie Sheet(s)
- 2 Mixing Bowls (1 medium, 1 large)
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp table salt
- ¾ cup avocado oil or other light tasting oil
- 1 cup brown sugar (light or dark, whichever is handy)
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- Extra granulated white sugar for rolling cookies in (see note about food safety)
Instructions
- Prepare cookie sheet pans with parchment paper, aluminum foil, or silicone mats. (Two or three separate pans is ideal but you can do it with just one pan if needed, letting it cool for a few minutes between each batch)
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and spices)
- In a large mixing bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer), mix together the brown sugar, oil, honey, and egg.
- Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Using a Tablespoon as a scoop and leveling off each one, make a pile of little ball-ish shapes. (a 1 Tbsp cookie scoop works well here if you have one)
- Roll each of the little shapes into a ball.
- Roll each dough ball in granulated sugar and place on a cookie sheet, a few inches apart. They will spread out and flatten on their own, no need to press them down. A dozen at a time in the oven works well.
- Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes then move to baking rack to finish cooling.
