Whenever I travel I love browsing through the local cookware shops and grocery stores. Vienna has fabulous cookware shops and Sarajevo has fabulous teas. But what made me pull out my wallet full of dirhams was small cookie presses in the bazaar in Marrakesh. I chose three and used one of them this year on mesquite ginger cookies I make every year for Christmas. This is an easy recipe that makes lots of cookies. The way to introduce people to new flavors is through something they already know. Everybody loves cookies and these are delicious.

 

Sonoran White wheat is great for pastry so if you have some, this is a good use. Otherwise, all-purpose flour works fine. This year, because I was using the fancy little press, I added a Middle Eastern flavor by adding cardamom along with the ginger.

I recently treated myself to a set of Silpat silicon sheets and love them for cookies.

Mesquite Ginger Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

¾ cup honey

1 cup White Sonoran or all-purpose flour

1 cup mesquite meal

2 teaspoons baking powder

½-1 teaspoon powdered ginger

½ teaspoon powdered cardamom (optional)

¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. and lightly grease two cookie sheets or line with Silpat sheets.

Beat together butter, sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Add honey and beat until combined. Add flours, mesquite meal, baking powder, spices, and salt and beat well.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Form with cookie stamp or dampen the end of a clean dish town and wrap it around the bottom or a juice glass. Use the cookie stamp or glass to flatten each dab of cookie dough.

Bake about 12 minutes until lightly browned around the edges. The cookies are soft and fragile when they come out of the oven, but the become firmer as they cool.

Makes about 5 ½ dozen small cookies.

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One more thing: My book on the 10,000 years of culinary history that led to Tucson being named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy has entered editing and over the next few months I’ll be posting a few bits of the most interesting information I learned in the two years I spent researching. Please follow me on my Facebook author page (Carolyn Niethammer author). I learned lots and would like to share it with you.  This will be the first book authorized to use the City of Gastronomy logo.  See my other books at www.cniethammer.com.  If you are looking for a Christmas gift for a foodie friend, stop by the Native Seeds/SEARCH retail store in Tucson or go online at nativeseeds.org and you’ll find wonderful gift items plus all my cookbooks.