Bready or Not Original: Chai Crinkle Cookies

These Chai Crinkle Cookies are a fantastically fresh take on spice cookies. They are like pudgy soft pillows with gentle spice flavor.

This recipe is an easy one to break into sections to make for faster baking. There are a lot of ingredients–tiny amounts of flavorful spices–and those can be mixed with the flour hours or days in advance. The dough itself needs to chill for at least a few hours. I kept it in the fridge a full day.

These are great cookies to make year-round, but there’s something extra special about a warmly-spiced treat at this time of year!

PrintBready or Not Original: Chai Crinkle CookiesThese Chai Crinkle Cookies are like a pudgy, soft, gently-spiced cousin of gingerbread. Makes about 50 cookies.Course Dessert, SnackKeyword cardamom, cookiesAuthor Beth CatoEquipmentplastic wrapparchment papercookie scoop or spoonIngredients1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick) softened1/4 cup vegetable shortening1 cup brown sugar firmly packed1 large egg room temperature1/4 cup molasses1 Tablespoon vanilla extract3 cups all-purpose flour1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda1/2 teaspoon kosher salt1/2 teaspoon ground ginger1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom1/8 teaspoon ground cloves1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper1/3 cup white sugar for toppingInstructionsIn a large bowl, beat together butter, shortening, and brown sugar, until fluffy, scraping the bottom of the bowl on occasion. Add egg, molasses, and vanilla.In another bowl, stir together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, ginger, cardamom, cloves, and pepper. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet.Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours, or up to a day.Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Measure out topping sugar into a bowl.Use a scoop or spoon to form walnut-sized balls. Roll dough balls in sugar. Place them slightly spaced on pan and then compress each one; they will not spread much while baking.Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until puffed and set. Let cool on pan a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.Store them in a sealed container at room temperature up to 3 days.OM NOM NOM!