Ginger and dark chocolate cookies

Delicious, chewy ginger and chocolate cookies with an orange hint. These are low protein and protein-free options for PKU and other restricted diets.

Protein levels and products used

If you use protein free flour and milk substitute then the protein in this recipe comes solely from the chocolate chips. I offer a few calculations below. If you have PKU/protein-free chocolate, Vitabite, then you can make these very low protein, possibly protein free.

I used regular dark chocolate chunks and found that 100g was quite a lot for this recipe. Also, 100g dark chocolate chunks = 9g of protein. If you get the recommended 24 cookies out of the mix then each cookie is 0.4g protein.

My recommendation: I chose to halve the amount of chocolate chunks to 50g. That meant each cookie was 0.2g of protein. (Under PKU UK guidelines, two cookies would be half an exchange.)

Tips & suggestions

The initial recipe called for a lot of chocolate, which I halved (see above). I also tried to make these healthier cookies by reducing the sugar and oil. The full amounts were slightly horrifying when I weighed them out. My reduced amounts worked well, and I have listed these below. If you want the full unadulterated experience, the original recipe is linked at the bottom.

This makes for a very loose cookie dough, but don’t be alarmed. The original chef noted: This cookie dough will be wetter than a normal dough and will spread on the trays but should make a chewy cookie. I found that letting the dough sit for a few minutes before spooning out helped.

Ingredients

• 50g golden syrup
• 75g light brown soft sugar or 40g dark brown soft sugar
• 60ml almond or corn oil. (I just used vegetable oil from the cupboard, olive oil is not recommended for this recipe as it affects the taste)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 60ml PKU friendly milk or milk substitute
• 210g PKU friendly flour
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 100g candied ginger, chopped into small chunks (or add to a good food processor with your flour and blitz)
• 50g dark chocolate chunks or Vitabite
• Zest of 1 orange (I didn’t have an orange handy, so added 1tbsp of orange juice).

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line a couple of large baking trays with baking parchment or a silicone baking sheet.
2. Blend the golden syrup, sugar, oil, vanilla extract and milk until smooth.
3. In a separate large bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda and salt, then stir in the wet ingredients until just combined.
4. Add in the candied ginger, chocolate and orange zest. (This is where I let the dough sit for a few minutes.)
5. Dollop teaspoons of the batter on to the prepared baking trays, spacing well apart
6. Bake in the preheated oven (in batches, if necessary) for 10–15 minutes, until the cookies’ edges are golden brown and the centres are puffy.
7. Leave to cool for 10 minutes or so before moving onto a wire rack. They’ll set harder as they cool, so don’t worry if they’re soft just after baking.

Source: adapted from Ruby Tandoh via The Guardian.

Please tell me in the comments if you try them, or have further tweaks.