Add Zesty Spices to Your Boring Cookies

When making cookies, you don’t owe cinnamon, chocolate, or any of the usual “baking spices.” You have a whole cabinet of seasonings at your disposal, so be a little resourceful. It’s easy to think that if your spices aren’t sweet, they will taste “unpleasant” in a cookie recipe. The thing is, none of them are sweet. Cinnamon and chocolate lack natural sweetness and can be used in a variety of sweet or savory recipes. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to unscrew the garlic powder cap right now, but you can certainly try other shakers.

When choosing a spice, consider the taste of the main recipe. If you really want the spice to shine, use neutral cookie dough or vanilla. Use ginger powder, ground cardamom, turmeric, ground cloves, finely ground black or white pepper, or cayenne pepper. Try a spice mix like za’atar or herbes de provence, or pair a couple of bright flavors like dark chocolate and black pepper. Once you have chosen your flavor(s), add a teaspoon or two of the spices to your cookie recipe’s dry ingredient mixture and proceed as directed. This will take care of the cookie dough, now let’s look at it from the outside.

Mexican wedding biscuits, crispy biscuits, amaretti and snowball biscuits are coated with a thick layer of powdered sugar, giving the biscuits a soft, velvety feel. Unfortunately, sugar doesn’t really have any flavor other than sweet. It has no fragrance. Instead of leaving everything as it is, add flavor to it. This is the same concept as seasoning a flour and breadcrumbs mixture for chicken cutlets. Chicken needs flavor on the outside, just like your liver. The easiest way to do this is to add a couple of teaspoons of the same spice you put inside the cookie dough to the powdered sugar you’ll be coating the outside with. For my crunchy cookies, I put half a cup of powdered sugar in a bowl and added two teaspoons of cardamom and a teaspoon of zaatar. I mixed it with a fork until it was smooth and then rolled out the cookie dough in the sugar and spice mixture. Make sure that the layer is thick, you do not need to shake off the excess. Bake as usual.

You may have noticed that I didn’t give the exact amount, and that’s because both spices and people vary a lot. While I can recommend trying different spices for your cookies, there is no universal amount as some spices are stronger than others. My recommendations would be to start small with spices like ground cloves, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. If you are using my cookie base recipe below, you can start at the lowest level and add ½ teaspoon to the batter. Generally, cinnamon and cardamom are welcome in large amounts, so you can use a full teaspoon. I have a friend who is obsessed with cinnamon so he can add a full tablespoon. The powdered sugar coating is thinner than it might seem, as each cookie only rises a little on the outside, so the measurement is higher.

You can do this spice switch with any cookie recipe you like, but recipes that include an outer sugar coating will give you double the flavor option. Try it with recipes that already include a measure of dry spices, and even those that don’t. A small amount of spice powder will not ruin the texture of most doughs. Choose the condiment you want to try and enjoy your new savory biscuits.

Wrinkled cookie base

Ingredients:

• 1 pack butter, softened
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½-2 teaspoons ground spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, zaatar, black pepper, cardamom)
• 1-3 teaspoons ground spices + ½ cup powdered sugar (for dusting)

Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the butter and sugar together until they are combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, and stir them into the sugar mixture. Stir in vanilla and salt. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and your favorite spices. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture and mix until the dough is well combined.

Place tablespoon-sized balls of dough on a baking sheet. No need to roll them into perfect balls, they wrinkle better when they are not smoothed. Place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350°F. In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar and the second batch of spices.

Roll the cookies in this spice mix. Don’t shake off excess. Return them to their places on the baking sheet. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Refrigerate cookies and serve. They will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for about five days.