Chestnut Ginger Biscuits

How often do I complain that there isn't enough ginger in a recipe? It's probably more than 50% of the time, with recipes where ginger is supposed to be the main flavor. No such problem with this biscuit recipe from Dan Lepard, which used six teaspoons of ground ginger - the flavour was so fierce there was an afterburn (in a very good way!).

I had no problems with following the recipe; the only change I made was to use all treacle instead of part golden syrup. This was suggested as an alternative, to increase the liquorice-ness of the treacle flavour. I chilled the soft dough for about 3 hours before forming it into balls - which I did using scales to ensure uniformity. If my memory is correct, I got 25 biscuits out of the dough, and after baking they stayed soft like cookies rather than being crisp like gingernuts. I'd been expecting them to be crisp, so this was a surprise, but not really a disappointment.

There wasn't much to complain about with these delicious biscuits, although my husband suggested they would be better without being rolled in sugar. Once again, I felt that the chestnut flour was overwhelmed by the other flavours in the recipe; treacle, ginger and ground cloves all have unique and striking flavours. After my past experiences it wasn't a surprise that I couldn't distinguish the flavour of the chestnut flour, but I had just a little left to use up so thought the recipe worth trying. (I'm really talking myself into not buying chestnut flour again, unless someone can recommend a recipe where it can be tasted!)

PS - the second attempt at the Spelt, Lemon and Maple Drizzle Cake wasn't any better than the first. I managed to find white spelt flour and added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to the batter, but the cake still sank, this time even before the cooking time was up. Two attempts is enough - there are plenty of other cake recipes out there!