Soft Ginger Cookies

My mother is visitng this weekend which gives me a fabulous excuse to bake. I have been looking forward to trying Kim Barnouin's recipe for Soft Ginger Cookies in my beloved "Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook". Since my mother is an avid fan of anything containing ginger it seemed like a good time to give them a shot. Unfortunately I did not read the recipe all the way through last night before I got busy baking so I did not see that the dough had to chill for an hour. I might have budgeted my time last night a little differently had I seen that...but otherwise they were very simple and turned out quite delicious. The only tweak I made was I added some maple sugar to the top of the cookies before baking to add some extra sweetness. Best part? Only 90 calories a cookie!

Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
½ cup Earth Balance, at room temperature
½ cup applesauce
2 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, or 1 tablespoon small pieces crystallized ginger (I used fresh ginger and actually added about 1.5 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
In a medium bowl, sift the flour. Add the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In a separate large bowl, beat the sugar and the Earth Balance with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the applesauce, molasses, ground and fresh ginger, and the vanilla. Beat for 1 minute. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and slowly stir together, being careful to avoid overmixing. Place in the refrigerator to chill for 1 hour and then roll in the dough into small balls and place on the prepared cookie sheet. Lightly press on the dough with your fingers to flatten a little, but make sure they aren’t too thin. Bake about 8 minutes. Let the cookies cool on baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.