I have a love affair with ginger right now. I can’t live without it – in my tea, in stir-fry, sushi isn’t complete without it, even in the granola at work! It was only time before I would begin baking with it.

I’ve been spying ginger cookies in my Pinterest feed for a good time now. They have all been of the snap variety, which, don’t get me wrong is great, but those make for a better topping or crust to a pumpkin cheesecake rather than a cookie I want to sit down and enjoy with a cup of tea.

These are a thing of beauty. So soft and chewy, so spicy — the perfect fall cookie without going for the predictable pumpkin (let’s be honest – I’m all for the pumpkin, but even pumpkin lovers need a break sometimes).

I apologize in advance if you can’t stop eating them when you told yourself you’d only eat one and you’re looking at half an empty cookie sheet.

I don’t apologize for adding a new favorite cookie to your collection though.

(Also, I suck. I only have the one photo I took. You see, I got so into the groove of things that I..forgot about photos! Don’t worry – it’s a relatively simple recipe and you’ll soon have your own cookies to marvel out in real life and won’t need my photos to get you through)

Triple Ginger Cookies

Adapted from Epicurious

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup minced crystallized ginger
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1/4 cup light (mild-flavored) molasses
• 1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh peeled ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Step one, Prep the Ginger

Peel fresh ginger root, and then using a micro plane, grind out about 1 1/2 tsp worth. Pro-tip: Peel the whole ginger root, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. It will last a while in the freezer and is easily grated when frozen.

Put the crystalized ginger into a food processor and pulse until the chunks turn into small pieces. The size of this is up to you – if you want pieces of crystalized ginger in your cookies, leave the pieces a bit bigger. If you don’t, grind them up until pretty tiny. I did the latter and it blended into the cookie really nicely. Also, feel free to add more here – I packed the 1/3 cup very full of this.

Step two, Cream

In a standing mixer, put butter in the bowl and begin mixing, about two minutes. Add the brown sugars and cream for about three more minutes – until lighter in color. Add the molasses, spices, gingers, and egg and mix until combined. Finally, add in the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until combined.

Step three, Bake

Using a small ice cream scoop, measure out dough balls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. These cookies don’t spread much at all, so I did about 12 cookies on each cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, until the edges are just crisp and the center is still soft.

Step four, Consume

These cookies are insanely good when still warm. They won’t last long, but keep in an air tight container.