Brown Butter Ginger Cookies

Directions

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients, including the chopped ginger, in a medium bowl.
2. In a saucepan or skillet, over medium heat, melt the butter. When it starts to foam begin whisking constantly. The butter will begin to brown after a couple minutes and start to give off a yummy, nutty aroma. Pour into the bowl of your mixer. Let it cool down for a few minutes. Add the brown sugar to your brown butter and beat until blended. I like to beat it for a while to cool the butter down–you can touch the bottom of the bowl and when it’s just warm you can move onto the next step.
3. Beat the egg, vanilla, and molasses into the butter/sugar mixture until well blended and smooth. Slowly add the dry ingredients and beat on low until just combined. If your dough still seems pretty warm you can cover and chill it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the ¼ cup of granulated sugar onto a plate. Use a cookie scoop (¼ cup, 2 tablespoon, or 1 tablespoon) and plop them onto the plate of sugar. Roll to cover the cookie dough balls and then place on cookie sheets an inch apart, gently pressing each down just a bit. Bake 12 minutes for 1/4 cup and 10 minutes for 2 and 1 tablespoon balls, or until well set. Let cool completely before drizzling/dipping in chocolate.
5. The chocolate part: Easiest method: place chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and add a teaspoon of coconut oil. Melt in 30 second increments, stirring with a heat proof spatula each time. If there are still the tiniest bits of chocolate remaining, just keep stirring with your spatula until they melt all the way. You don’t want to over-nuke your chocolate.
6. Make sure your cookies are spaced nicely on a parchment or wax paper lined counter. Spoon melted chocolate into a plastic pastry bag (this is another reason you don’t want your chocolate too hot!), twist real close to the chocolate to remove the air, and cut the tiniest end off. Drizzle away. Drizzling in the same direction is a good idea.
7. If you want to dip half the cookies in chocolate, skip the pastry bag, and just dip cookies right into the bowl of chocolate, allowing the excess chocolate to drip back in. Alternately, you can spoon a bit of chocolate onto the cookie and spread evenly over half or the entire cookie. Place on your lined countertop or on a lined cookie sheet so you can place in the freezer for a few minutes to harden. The original recipe sprinkled the chocolate with chopped pistachios, which is lovely.