**The Art of Baking: Tips and Tricks from a Master Baker**

When it comes to baking, some people may find that certain cookies can be finicky, especially when it comes to coming out of the cutter. To avoid this problem, try tapping the edge of the cookie cutter on a flat surface, such as a cutting board. This simple trick will help release the cookie from the cutter and ensure that you get perfectly formed treats.

For ease of use and cleanliness, I always use half-sheet pan parchment paper when baking cookies. Not only does it prevent the pan from sticking, but it also helps to bake the cookies more evenly. The parchment paper adds a non-stick surface, making it easy to scoop out the cookies once they're done baking. And, as an added bonus, baked goods that are not stuck to the pan will often turn out better in terms of texture and appearance.

In addition to parchment paper, I also love using half-sheet pans when baking cookies. The even heat distribution ensures that all cookies bake at the same rate, resulting in perfectly cooked treats every time. And with a large sheet pan, you can make multiple batches of cookies at once, making it easier to satisfy a crowd.

Of course, no batch of cookies would be complete without a sweet touch – and for me, that means adding just a little bit of sugar on top of each cookie before baking. This added sweetness gives the cookies a subtle sparkle when they come out of the oven. And let's be real, who wouldn't want to indulge in a deliciously sweet treat?

For my shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate, I take a different approach. First, I bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, or until they just start to brown on the edges. This ensures that they're tender and not too crispy. And then, I shave semi-sweet chocolate into chunks – using high-quality chocolate is essential for achieving that perfect melt and flavor.

When it comes to melting the chocolate, I use a bit of trickery. By microwaving half the chocolate in small increments and letting it cool before adding the rest, I can achieve a smooth, glossy finish without overheating the chocolate. This technique also helps prevent the tempering process from occurring – and trust me, once you've tempered chocolate, it's impossible to go back!

Once the cookies are baked and cooled, I'm ready to drizzle them with melted chocolate. Simply pour the melted chocolate into a bowl and let it cool slightly before dipping each cookie in. The result is a perfectly coated treat that looks as good as it tastes.

Now, onto my ultimate ginger cookie recipe! These treats are filled with spice, moist, and absolutely delicious. To start, I preheat my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare the dry ingredients: 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/3 cup of oil, 1 tablespoon of molasses, 1 egg, and 1 1/4 cups of chopped crystallized ginger. I sift all these ingredients together to ensure they're well combined and evenly distributed.

Next, I prepare the wet ingredients by whisking together the remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl – making sure there are no lumps or clumps. I then add the egg, oil, and molasses to the mixture, stirring until it's smooth and creamy.

The key to these cookies is balance – not too much ginger, not too little cinnamon. But when it comes together just right, the flavors meld into something truly magical. So go ahead, give them a try! They're sure to become your new favorite dessert.

To finish off my ultimate ginger cookie recipe, I add a final touch of sweetness and crunch by rolling each cookie in sugar before baking. This not only adds texture but also gives the cookies a delightful sparkle when they come out of the oven. With these tips and tricks under your belt, you'll be well on your way to creating delicious shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate – or perhaps even mastering the art of ginger cookie-making!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign the cookies with half a pound of room temperature butter it's really great when it's room temperature I just think it's an important part of baking I actually leave it out overnight and then you know it's really room temperature and then cooker brown sugar and then I'm going to add two eggs put it one at a time so they incorporate okay the next thing is vanilla two teaspoons of good vanilla two-thirds of a cup of cocoa powder this is the unsweetened cocoa powder it's not like the cocoa that you make hot cocoa from that has sugar added to it and sometimes flavorings oh nice cocoa everywhere two thirds of a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and that's what gives it its really good chocolate flavor mix that around the next thing is flour and the leavening so I have two cups of flour a teaspoon of baking soda teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of salt just really make sure that there aren't any little hard particles in the flour or the baking powder perfect and then this goes into the cookies put it on low speed this is the point where you don't want to over mix the flour because then it'll develop the gluten and make it taste more like bread than cookies we want them really really delicate and tender and that's the dough so I'm just going to take all the batter off the beater make sure we make it into cookies it's great okay and then I'm just going to put the white chocolate in this saw the white chocolate that I cut up and I just cut it off this block and sort of nice big chunks and I'm going to pour in two cups of white chocolate into this this makes a huge batter but you can actually make this really early and you can save it in the refrigerator or even freeze it for later so it's a great recipe and now just to scoop them there's a little bit of a deck and a dessert but you know how girls are when boys aren't around so I use an ice cream scoop for this and it makes exactly the right size each time just one level ice cream scoop it's a small one and these guys are going to spread out too I'm gonna make eight cookies two for each of the ice cream sandwiches so just with a little bit of water just I wet my hand just a smidge and just press it down ever so slightly and you'll see they're all spread out so they're really sort of soft and chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside okay into the oven 350 degrees for exactly 15 minutes they're going to be so good with the ice cream 15 minutes and the tuna salad later they were ready they smell like they're done oh they're great foreign I'm co-hosting a party for a crowd with my friend Susan Stroman so for dessert I'm making fruitcake cookies for anybody who doesn't like fruitcake forget it you'll love these so I'm starting with two sticks of butter and half a teaspoon of cloves these are really spicy and they're just fabulous third of a cup of brown sugar when measuring brown sugar you want it lightly packed not so firm that you can't get it out of the cup but lightly packed half a cup of granulated sugar white sugar I'm just going to cream that together until it's light and fluffy so while that creams I'm going to show you the fruit and nut mix that I've been macerating for eight hours so all the flavors blend together I'll show you how I did it so the mix has four dried fruits first the figs that half a pound next a quarter of a pound of raisins two ounces of candy cherries and two ounces of dried apricots then for sweetness a tablespoon of honey and two tablespoons of dry sherry doesn't this remind you of a mixture for fruitcake so much better for Brighton is a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice add some nutty crunch from six ounces of pecans chop them roughly and then they go into the mix a pinch of salt and then just let it sit for eight hours until all those flavors blend together and the dried fruits all plump up this looks great and you can really taste the Sherry it's gonna be delicious but these are for later first I'm going to finish the batter so the next thing I need the butter and sugar are nicely creamed is one egg I never put an egg directly into the batter because if it's a bad egg you ruin the whole batter next two and two thirds cups of flour just lighten the flour with your cup and then level it off you don't want to pack it down and two-thirds cups just added in on low speed a bunch of salt salt quarter of a teaspoon the batter's done now I just have to add all the dried fruit so all the pecans and candied cherries and raisins and apricots figs just fold them all right in it's gonna be gorgeous now I'm just going to divide the dough in half and put it right on this parchment paper Schmutz it around and then roll it up so I'm just going to chill these cookies and I'm going to slice them and bake them before I head to Susan's house fruitcake cookies for a crowd I love this recipe all you do is slice and bake the cookies people go crazy in fact I just keep the roll in the refrigerator I can just slice and bake them whenever I want but this time I'm making them all I'm just going to cut them about 3 8 inch thick should be perfect so much flavor having 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they just start to Brown and then all I have to do is keep myself from eating them am I going to be able to resist these I don't think so I have to make sure they're good right you're so good I was trying to find some inspiration from things that Jeffrey and I have done together for this meal and one of them is we used to go to Social Security all the time and it was just an incredible restaurant they made these chocolate Globs that were so delicious and I thought I'm going to make a variation on them I'm making chocolate peanut butter Globs so I'm starting with two extra large eggs the original ones actually didn't have peanut butter chips in them but I thought nothing's ever made worse with peanut butter right so I've got two extra large eggs and a tablespoon of instant espresso powder that really brings out the chocolate plus two teaspoons of vanilla that also brings out the chocolate flavor these cookies are actually amazing they're like these big mounds and they're stuffed with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips and pecans and walnuts they're so good so I'm just going to mix this all up then I need three quarters of a cup of sugar so Jeffrey and I have divided up the tasks for dinner he's at the vineyard he's choosing wines and I'm in charge of baking and cooking wait a minute that doesn't sound fair does it so this is going to mix on high speed for about two minutes then we're going to add lots of really good stuff I'll show you what happens that's why it's important for the eggs to be at room temperature because you want it to sort of fall back on itself on a ribbon which is exactly where it is so now it's time to add the chocolate and what I've done is I've melted the chocolate ahead it's really easy to do all I did was put six tablespoons of unsalted butter into a bowl set over a pan of simmering water with six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips two ounces of unsweetened chocolate and just melted everything together until it was just melted then I just took the mixture off to cool okay so with the mixer on low I'm just gonna add the chocolate this is very chocolatey you want to be sure this is really cool because the last thing you want is to add hot chocolate to eggs you love chocolate scrambled eggs nobody's idea of a good dessert okay that's in okay so now the dry mixture the first thing is a third of a cup of cup one reason why these are these are so intensely chocolatey and fudgy is it's got very little flour in it one teaspoon of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of salt and just mix that together and then with the mixer on low just put it in really slowly so it gets mixed in and then I'm going to add all kinds of nuts and chips great so I need one cup of whole pecan halves it's really important that the whole pecan halves as opposed to chopped pecans I need a cup of whole Walnut halves and again it's really important for these to be whole because then it's going to be really chunky in the cookie two thirds of a cup of peanut butter chips yum to stop myself from eating them while I'm making it and six ounces of chocolate chips semi-sweet chocolate chips come right in and then the key to this is one tablespoon of flour and what that does is keep them from sinking to the bottom of the mixture so I'm just going to mix them up like this I mean it looks like trail mix to start with okay now I'm going to add the chocolate mixture Jeffrey loves these so I thought why not it just smells incredibly chocolatey fabulous I'm just going to fold these together and then I'm going to make these Globs chocolate Globs I think Jeffrey's gonna like this and I'm just gonna make a round ball with this just scoop it out right onto the sheet pan how bad does that look okay into the oven 325 for 15 minutes we're gonna have chocolate peanut butter Globs this is a really easy dough to make I make it an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment first I put in three quarters of a pound of room temperature butter then I add one cup of sugar and a teaspoon of good vanilla add three and a half cups of all-purpose flour and finally a quarter of a teaspoon of kosher salt turn the mixer on low and just mix the ingredients until they just come together turn the dough out into a flower board and shape it until it comes into a flat disc wrap the disc in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes so this is a short break dough it's been chilled and I'm going to roll it out and make cookies this is a really great dough particularly because it's so flexible I can make all different kinds of star shapes and this time I think I'm going to cut it in half it's a lot of cookies for just Miguel and me and the good news is I can freeze the other half so the next time he shows up and actually I even flower the rolling pin no point making cookies if they're going to stick to the board so I'm just going to roll this out about a half an inch thick okay ready for the cutter so this is the sort of finger shape that I want to make and just cut each cookie sometimes it's hard to come out of the cutter but you just tap the edge on the board and it'll just come right out so I'm using half sheet pan parchment paper keeps the pan clean the cookies bake better I love parchment paper these are going to be delicious cookies just a little bit of sugar on the top just gives them a little bit of Sparkle when they come out of the oven then I'm going to bake them 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until they just start to Brown on the edges shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate now who would have a problem with that so what I'm going to do is I'm going to shave some chocolate I'm using semi-sweet chocolate just enough for 10 cookies if I do it in chunks it's not going to melt right so it's important to just take your knife and just shave it off first I'm going to put half the chocolate in a bowl and microwave it let's see how it's doing foreign so the first bit of chocolate's melted and now what I'm going to do is add the rest of it and just melt it right in and what this does is keep the temperature from getting too hot when chocolate's melted and not tempered it gets that sort of Bloom where it's sort of Gray not very pretty well really glossy delicious chocolate so that's just going to melt right in okay time to dip the cookies so the cookies are baked and cooled and I'm just gonna drizzle chocolate across the top of each one just half I like the way it looks when it's both how good does that look they'll be delicious with a tray of shortbreads dipped in chocolate dinner just doesn't get any simpler or better than this what I'm making for dessert is my ultimate ginger cookie they're filled with spice they're moist they're delicious and who doesn't like cookies so the first thing I need is flour I need two and a quarter cups of flour I always just lighten it with a cup and just level it off without tamping it down and I'm going to do this all in a sifter so we sift all of these ingredients together all the flour spices to two and a quarter perfect one teaspoon of baking soda and next spices first two teaspoons of cinnamon I use really good cinnamon those that's a lot of clothes they're really spicy I know people think ginger cookies only have ginger in them but I love when there are multiple flavors and it just sort of hits you different ways half a teaspoon of ground ginger a teaspoon of nutmeg and the key is the balance so that one spice just doesn't stand out it sort of hits you layer after layer after layer a quarter of a teaspoon of salt just make everything taste better I know it sounds odd to put salt and sweet things but Savory things to bring out the flavors and you put them in sweet things for exactly the same reason and then just put it through the sifter this is what the sifter's about it actually mixes it but if there are any little sort of pieces in the spices of the flour it takes it out okay that's the dry ingredients now for the wet ingredients so the first thing I need is a cup of brown sugar all of these ingredients add to the moistness and the spiciness of these cookies quarter of a cup of oil use any kind of flavorless oil that you have a third of a cup of molasses glasses is actually the concentrated juice of sugar cane so it's very sweet and very flavorful you want to choose unselfered molasses it's the best quality smells good I'm just going to keep these together for a minute while I get the egg ready I want the sugar and the oil to be light and fluffy okay next to the egg got one egg okay that's ready I'm just gonna put the egg in I'm going to lower the speed and put all the dry ingredients slowly just to make sure they get combined well that's mixed perfectly and now for the surprise crystallized ginger I love crystallized ginger there's something about the Heat and the sweetness of it that it's just fantastic so I'm going to do one and a quarter of cups of chopped crystallized ginger okay right into the mixture give it a little stir and that's done now I'm just going to scoop it out and roll it in sugar and bake it it's going to be so delicious actually use for cookies I use this ice cream scoop it ensures that they're all the same size roll it in my hands and then roll it in the sugar and what this does is make a nice crinkly crust on it and it makes the whole cookie Sparkle So Right on the pan just flatten it out with your hand it's gonna be great dessert into the oven 350 degrees for 12 minutes and we're going to have the most delicious ultimate ginger cookies for dinner\n"