Ginger Spice Cookies with Roasted Black Plum Sorbet
 
Wake up your senses with a ginger spice cookie (gluten and sugar free).  Serve together with a delightful sorbet made simply from roasted black plums. A delightful ending to a summer meal.
 
This cookie is a nutritional powerhouse, loaded with antioxidants from dry ginger, Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, green cardamom, and vanilla seeds. It’s lightly sweetened with dates, and moistened with soy yogurt and soy chia pudding, adding additional health benefits.  The plum sorbet is rich in fiber, potassium, magnesium, vitamin K and calcium, iron copper, and vitamins A, E, and Bs.  
 
Climate Note
Dried ginger has a low climate footprint, ranging from 1.43 to 1.87 kg CO2e/kg, depending on where it is grown and processed. Fresh plums, cultivated on U.S. farms, has a very low climate footprint of 0.14 kg CO2e/kg. 
 
Hint
If you are like me and make soy yogurt and chia pudding (so easy, see below) for a daily source of short-chained Omega-3s, then these cookies are a cinch to make.
Choose a vanilla powder that is simply made from ground vanilla seeds with no sweetener or fillers.
 
Prep 3 hours for chia pudding to thicken plus 10 minutes
Bakes 17 minutes
Makes about 17 cookies
 
2 tablespoons chia pudding from warm ½ cup unsweetened soy milk, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, and 1 full teaspoon plain soy yogurt
1/3 cup soy yogurt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons dense date paste from ¾ cup pitted dates
1 teaspoon shiro (white) miso paste
1 cup quinoa or millet flour
¼ teaspoon potassium bicarbonate, a sodium-free baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla powder, made only from ground vanilla beans 
½ teaspoon ginger powder
¼ teaspoon green cardamom powder
¼ teaspoon nutmeg powder
¼ teaspoon Ceylon cinnamon powder
¼ cup chopped pistachio nuts or almonds, as a garnish
 
 
To create chia pudding, warm the soy milk in a small bowl for 15 seconds in a microwave oven. Add the chia seeds and soy yogurt, stirring well to saturate all the chia seeds. Set aside for a few hours on the counter, stirring occasionally. The pudding is ready when the seeds have all swelled and become gelatinous, and the pudding is dense 
To make date paste, place the pitted, chopped dates in a bowl, just cover with water, cover with a small silicone mat, and microwave for 3 minutes. Cool. Blend the dates and soaking water in food processor to create a smooth, dense paste.  Measure out ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons of date paste and set aside.
In a medium bowl add the quinoa or millet flour, vanilla powder, potassium carbonate, stirring well to combine.
In a separate bowl, combine the chia pudding, soy yogurt, date paste, and miso paste, stirring them until smooth.
Preheat the oven to 350°F and place a rack on the middle oven shelf.
Line a cookie sheet with silicone mats or parchment paper.
Use a silicone spatula to scrape the mix from the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients, stirring lightly to combine. The cookie dough will be sticky.
Use a small (1/8 cup) ice cream scoop to transfer the dough to the lined cookie sheet, spacing each cookie at least an inch apart. You should have dough for about 17 cookies.
With clean fingers pinch some chopped pistachio nuts or almonds and transfer to the top of each cookie. Tap lightly on each to ensure the nuts adhere to the dough.
Bake for about 17 minutes. The cookies are ready when they are somewhat firm when touched and are golden on their edges.  Do not overbake.
Remove the tray from the oven and cool for about 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack with a metal spatula. 
Serve in the coming few hours or store them in a tightly covered container in the fridge, where Ginger Spice Cookies will keep for a week.  They can also be frozen for up to 3 months. 
 
 
Roasted Stone Fruit Purées and Sorbets
 
Roasted sorbets, made from frozen, puréed stone fruits, scarcely require a recipe. Whenever at my plums, apricots, or peaches grow too soft on the counter to eat without making a juicy mess, I transfer them into a delicious compote or sorbet. I slice and roast them, instead of cooking them down in a pot, to gently caramelize their natural sugars and enhance their flavor.  If I have less than a pound of soft fruit, I make a fruit purée; if I have at least a pound, I have the option of making a few cups of sorbet.
 
Preheat oven to 400F°.
Pit each fruit and cut into ¼-inch slice.
Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Place each fruit slice on the parchment, spaced slightly apart, and bake on the middle or upper oven shelf for about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven when the fruit is easy to pierce with a paring knife and has begun to release its juices.  Black plums and cherries may produce the most juice, peaches and nectarines less, but they often make creamier sorbets.
Cool and transfer the roasted fruit slices and any juices they produced to a high-speed blender. Run on high for a minute to create a creamy, light whipped purée. 
Fruit purées make delicious desserts in their own rights, topped with a dollop of strained soy yogurt crème fraîche.
To make sorbet, if you have an ice cream maker, follow its instructions, using fruit purée as your mix. If you do not have one, simply transfer to a pyrex container and freeze for an hour.  Remove from the freezer, use a mini whisk to whip the purée to break up any ice crystals, and return the container to the freezer.  Repeat once or twice more.
To serve, if the sorbet is too hard right out of the freezer, allow it to soften for 15 minutes on the counter, before scooping it out to enjoy.