Gingerbread Muffins with Fresh Ginger

Nothing says Christmas like the smell of baking gingerbread.  The idea for these came from a new cookbook my mom just gave me: Holiday Cookies: And Other Festive Treats by Linda Collister.   This cookbook has a lot of fun recipes I plan to try out for the holidays.  The recipe I made tonight is called Gingerbread Mini-Muffins. I changed a few aspects of the recipe including using fresh ginger instead of stem ginger (candied), making full-sized muffins instead of mini, and dusting the muffins with powdered sugar instead of icing them with royal icing.  The full recipe from the book follows.

Gingerbread Mini-Muffins

7 tablespoons unsalter butter

2 tablespoons molasses

2 tablespoons honey

2/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

a good pinch of salt

1 extra-large egg, beaten

2 oz stem ginger, drained and finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350.  Put the butter, molasses, honey, sugar and milk in a saucepan over low heat and melt gently.  Remove from heat and let cook for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, and salt into a mixing bowl.  Pour in the cooled, melted mixture, then the egg.  Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.  Mix in the stem ginger.

Spoon the mixture into the cases using two teaspoons.  Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until firm to the touch.

Let cool on a wire rack, then decorate with icing.  Store in an airtight container and eat within three days.  Makes about 36.

To decorate:  royal icing , or writing icing pens

Use mini-muffin pans lined with foil mini-muffin cases, or use double cases set on a baking sheet.

The specific changes I made to the recipe were:

-substituted 1/2 tablespoon very finely minced fresh ginger for the stem ginger (this gave them a nice spicy flavor, but didn’t come on too strong);

-dusted the muffins with about 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar instead of icing them; and,

-made regular-sized muffins instead of mini (the recipe made exactly 12).