I made my own version of the classic soba boro cookie with powdered ginger and finely chopped stem ginger. I wanted to add something extra and thought of sesame seed. When I opened my cupboard, I found out that I had no sesame left at all! All that I could find was some Japanese gomasio (a mixture of black sesame seed and sea salt). First I painstakingly tried to separate the seeds from the salt, but soon gave up… Then I decided to just try the combination with one cookie. And I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The salt brings out the ginger taste and makes this a rather sophisticated after dinner treat. Try it! You can make gomasio yourself with black or white sesame seed quite easily. Check my ingredients page for the ‘recipe’.
Soba boro from Japan
for about 25 koekjes
2 eggs
75 grams butter
200 grams buckwheat flour
200 gram cake flour
6 gram baking powder
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
pinch of salt
225 gram (light) muscovado sugar
50 grams stem ginger (finely chopped)
Use room temperature eggs. If you have cold eggs, leave them in some hot water for about 5 minutes to warm up. Melt the butter in a saucepan en keep on medium heat until the solids start to brown. Burnt butter tastes terrible so keep an eye on your pan! Take the pan from the stove and leave to cool down slightly. Sift the buckwheat flour, the flour, the baking powder and the powdered ginger in a large bowl. Add the sugar and break the eggs in the bowl. Add the butter, the stem ginger, the gomasio and about 4 tablespoons of cold water. Quickly knead the mixture into a ball. Add some more water if the dough is still crumbly.
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour, but preferably 1 night. Roll out the dough to 1/4 cm on a lightly dusted piece of baking paper . I spread some cling film over the dough before I started rolling it out. It won’t stick and you don’t have to use a lot of flour so the dough stays nice and moist.
Preheat the oven to 170 °C (338°F) . Use a cookie cutter to cut out the cookies or draw a flower on baking paper and cut out the shape to use to cut around with a sharp knife. Cover a cookie sheet with baking paper and put on the cookies. Sprinkle some gomasio in the center of each cookie. Leave a little space for them to spread. Bake the cookies for about 10 min. or until they are golden. Take them out of the oven and let them cool down on the cookie sheet.
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