Moving Day Cookies (Ginger-Nut-Butter-Apricot-Oat Snaps!)

I hate moving. Over my four years in Beijing, I’ve moved four times. The first time I had a few suitcases and moved across the length of the city. The other three times I’ve moved a considerably smaller distance with considerably more stuff.

There’s nothing worse than moving the dregs of a flour sack, or the tail-end of a jar of jam, or a knob of butter – especially not in this sweltering weather. So I needed to eat a lot of things, and quickly.

And thus were born these ginger-nut-butter-apricot-oat cookies, with ingredients willfully substituted to use up this or that. The results were so mind-bogglingly delicious, however, that this recipe is definitely going to be more than an improvisational one-off. All my moving-inspired changes seem to make a tastier cookie, moist and spicy with a hint of nuttiness. They’re healthful too, thanks to the almond butter, spelt, and oats. I can’t imagine wanting gingersnaps any other way, right now. (Ask me again in two months. I get bored.)

Ginger Snaps with Almond Butter

Moist and spicy, the cookies have a hint of nutty goodness and are chewy from the oats. The long ingredient list isn’t intimidating – and if need be, you can always go back to the original recipe from David Lebovitz. He also gives American volume measurements. Ingredients #1-3 were originally 280g of flour, etc.

140g organic white flour
60g organic spelt flour
80g oats
1½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
130g brown sugar
40g grated ginger root
½ tsp vanilla extract
75g butter
75g almond butter* or peanut butter
80g apricot jam
1 egg

* Roasted almond butter can be easily made through roasting almonds in the oven until golden, and then processing in the blender until it becomes buttery in texture. Super easy – I’ve been making my own nut butter this way for months.

Follow the instructions as given by David Lebovitz in the original recipe, around which I loosely based my variation. I’d like to try this with all almond butter or peanut butter too.