Excerpted from The Artisinal Kitchen: Holiday Cookies by Alice Medrich (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Deborah Jones. 
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With crunchy edges and a chewy center, beautifully crackled on top, spicy, and loaded with diced crystallized ginger, this is my favorite spice cookie. You can tone down the heat by omitting the fresh ginger and cutting down on the candied ginger and still end up with a great cookie.

Screaming Ginger Cookies

Makes fifty-six 2¼-inch cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups (9 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and still warm
• ¼ cup unsulfured (but not blackstrap) mild or full-flavored molasses
• ½ cup (3.5 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1⁄3 cup (2.33 ounces) packed brown sugar or light muscovado sugar
• 2 tablespoons finely minced or grated fresh ginger
• 1 large egg
• ¾ cup (4 ounces) ginger chips or crystallized ginger, cut into ¼-inch dice
• About ½ cup (3.5 ounces) demerara or turbinado sugar or ¼ cup (1.75 ounces) granulated sugar for rolling

Equipment

• Cookie sheets, lined with parchment paper or ungreased

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly with a whisk or fork.
3. Combine the warm butter, molasses, granulated and brown sugars, fresh ginger, and egg in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the fl our mixture and ginger chips and stir until incorporated. The dough will be soft.
4. Form the dough into 1-inch balls (0.5 ounce dough for each). Roll the balls in the Demerara sugar and place them 2 inches apart on the lined or ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the cookies puff up and crack on the surface and then begin to deflate in the oven. Rotate the sheets from top to bottom and from back to front halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. For chewier cookies, remove them from the oven when at least half or more of the cookies have begun to deflate; for crunchier edges with chewy centers, bake for a minute or so longer.
5. For lined pans, set the pans or just the liners on racks to cool; for unlined pans, use a metal spatula to transfer the cookies to racks. Cool the cookies completely before storing. They may be kept in an airtight container for several days.