How the Cookie Crumbled

A lemon ginger cookie crumble perfectly paired with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream

We recently tried this cookie recipe for our Christmas cookie basket and it was an epic fail which is very rare for us. No matter what we did we could not get the dough to hold together – we froze it – we tried re-rolling it – we tried everything – and it just wouldn’t hold together. Martha Stewart you failed us (this once)! We baked pieces of the dough and the flavor was excellent. It is full of lemon with a hint of ginger at the end – almost spicy. Instead of relegating this to the garbage bin we gave it a new life. As the saying goes “necessity is the mother of invention” so this recipe went from cookie to topping. We simply crumbled the entire batch of dough and baked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees until it was slightly crispy. We put the “crumble” in little mason jars as a gift. This crumble would be good on top of oatmeal, yogurt or ice cream. We posted the recipe for the cookie from the Martha Stewart site – if you make it please let us know if you had better luck on the cookie aspect of this recipe. Sometimes, in baking and life, you just gotta roll with the punches!

Ingredients

• 1 cup sliced almonds

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 tablespoon ground ginger

• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1/2 cup molasses

• 1 teaspoon pure lemon extract

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 1/4 cup minced crystallized ginger

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake until golden, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove almonds to a shallow bowl to cool. Turn off oven.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flour, sugar, ginger, lemon zest, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add butter, molasses, and lemon and vanilla extracts, and beat until combined. With a wooden spoon, stir in almonds and crystallized ginger.

3. Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a 7-by-3-inch rectangle about 1 1/4 inches thick. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until very firm, about 2 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with Silpats (nonstick French baking mats) or parchment paper.

5. Using a sharp knife, cut rectangles crosswise into very thin slices, thinner than 1/8 inch, if possible. Arrange on prepared baking sheets 1/2 inch apart. Bake until just beginning to darken around edges, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer crisps to wire racks to cool.