Ginger and Honey Crisp Biscuits

I found a recipe, on Waitrose website, for Ginger and Honey Biscuits, with Chocolate & Honey Dip.
Now I only wanted the biscuits, not the dip.  However, I have reproduced the full recipe below, for those who may wish to have the dip to savour with the biscuits. 

I followed the recipe precisely and found that the taste of ginger is not very marked, until you find a peice of the chopped stem ginger.  So for those who like a more robust ginger flavour you may wish to double the amount of ginger powder.  Of course it could be that my ginger powder had lost some strength, but I hadn’t had it in the cupboard for very long, so I rather doubt it.

The aroma that is given off as they cook is very pleasant, you can definitely smell the orange zest as well as the ginger.

I did find that rolling out was easier by halving the dough and placing one half back in the fridge while I dealt with the other half.  Then I placed the off-cut of pastry back in the fridge to firm up a little before rolling out again.  That allowed me to get 36 biscuits from the mixture.  I could have easily got 40 if I rolled the off-cut out once more, but I discarded that instead.

Ingredients:

• 150g softened butter
• 20g icing sugar
• 40g light brown sugar
• 3 tsp clear honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 orange
• 20g chopped stem ginger in syrup
• 1 medium egg
• 200g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 1 tsp ground ginger

1. Place the butter and sugars in a large bowl and cream together with an electric whisk until pale then beat in the honey with the vanilla, orange zest and chopped stem ginger.
2. Add the egg, and when combined, sieve in the flour, add the ground almonds and ground ginger and mix until it forms a smooth soft dough. Cover with clingfilm and chill in the fridge until firm or overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 180ºC, gas mark 4 and line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking parchment.
4. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and using a 5cm round pastry-cutter cut out 40 circles. Transfer them onto the baking trays. Bake in the preheated oven for 8–10 minutes until the edges are golden and still soft in the centre. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring onto a rack to cool completely.
5. (Optional) To make the dip: place the whipping cream into a small sauce pan and bring to the boil. Add in the chocolate and honey and whisk until it becomes smooth and glossy. Serve with the ginger and honey biscuits.