Mmmmm....Spicy Chewy Molasses Cookies

[Dover]

Smells like the holidays and tastes soooooo yummy in the tummy!
One of my favorites.
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To give the cookies their finished look, I rolled the dough in a mixture of raw, turbinado and muscovado sugars, rather than just using plain/raw sugar. Brown or muscovado sugar alone is not ideal for rolling because of the way it packs down so easily. They do add some extra flavor compared to other sugars, however, so just mix them with something a little less sticky to make things easier.


Spicy, Chewy Molasses Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses (not blackstrap)
2 tbsp honey
1 large egg
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional: 1/2 cup candied ginger, diced
sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses, honey and egg until smooth.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Working by hand, or with a mixer on low speed, stir flour mixture into molasses mixture. Stir in chopped, candied ginger.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls and roll each ball in extra sugar (use plain sugar, coarse sugar, turbinado sugar, etc.) before placing on baking sheet.
Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are set but not browned.
Cool for 5-10 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container.

Makes 3 - 3 1/2 dozen cookies

http://bakingbites.com/2008/11/spicy-chewy-molasses-cookies/


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Here's the old fashioned way -


Spicy Molasses Cookies!
18 cookies

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening)
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix sugar, shortening, molasses, and egg together until well combined.
Dump in dry ingredients, stirring dry ingredients together lightly. Mix together until dough is combined.

Roll dough into walnut-sized balls, then generously coat each ball with sugar.
Place balls on a baking sheet and bake for 9 to 11 minutes, allowing to bake for about a minute after cookies begin to crack.

Remove cookies from baking sheet and allow to cool….though these are delicious while still warm.
Fun variation: drizzle melted white chocolate in decorative stripes over the top of each cookie. Allow to harden before serving. Or: dip half of each cookie in melted white chocolate. Yum.
Another fun variation: make sandwiches using two cookies and a scoop of cinnamon ice cream. Yikes.
Another really fun variation: eat all the cookies yourself, then hide all the evidence.

[housewolf]

1. Mmmm... those look and sound wonderful

I LOVE good, soft, chewy molasses cookies!

Thanks for sharing the recipe and the pic. Not to mention your last really fun idea... :9

[spindrifter]

2. Thanks! My faves!

[Blues Heron]

3. Bookmarked!

This looks really tasty. Haven't made cookies in years, but i think I'll give this a try. Just bought some cardamom too so I'm pretty set! (except for ground cloves, but I have whole)

Thanks for posting this!

[hippywife]

4. My other half insists on having these

about every other week or so. Before I met him, my only exposure to molasses was a one-time adventure as a teen making my favorite cookie, ginger snaps. I opened the jar and put my nose to the top expecting an aroma akin to maple syrup. Ha! Never touched the stuff again until the past decade when I started baking for him.

Now I use it in lots of different things, but primarily these cookies (the butter variety.)

:hi:

[MagickMuffin]

5. I made a batch of these over the weekend

I got my recipe from Better Homes cookbook. It's called Ginger Snaps however there isn't any snap to them, but plenty of zap.

2 1/4 C flour
1 C brown sugar
3/4 C shortening
1/4 C molasses
1 egg
1 t baking soda
1 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 sugar (for rolling cookies in before baking)

I altered the recipe. I use butter, and add Indian Five Spices and Garam Masala (these spices has cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, and black pepper) I also add more ginger and have in the past used the candied ginger (which is kinda hard to chop up) but adds a great twist to the recipe.

I hope everyone here tries making these, they really are excellent. Unfortunately, I never get to experience the wondrous aroma since I've lost my sense of smell :cry:

[Dover]

6. Looks yummy! And I often switch out the white sugar for brown.

The brown sugar adds a deeper, richer flavor imo. Forgot to mention that in my recipe.

I hope your lack of smell does not affect your taste buds. :hug:

[MagickMuffin]

7. Funny thing is my cookies don't look anything like the pic

Mine turn out having a dome shaped top. But they are very soft and pouffy.

I have been doing some research on smell and taste buds. Apparently are sense of smell is how we taste food, and that our taste buds really only knows sweet, sour, salty, bitter. Our olfactory buds are how we determine our sense of taste.

This link explains it better.

http://www.life-enhancement.com/article_template.asp?ID=831

I have started taking Alpha Lipoic Acid as a treatment that I learned thru the link above. Hopefully it will help restore my sense of smell. It's really hard when people want you to smell things for them and I have to tell them I lost my sense of smell.

My FIL lost his sense of smell and I always felt so sorry for him, not being able to smell flowers or food. He was always a dear though whenever I cooked for him, he always bestowed such praise for my cooking.

Thank you for the :hug:

:hi::hug:

[Dover]

8. Did you use this recipe or are you referring to your own?

Not sure why they might be pouffy. They should spread out in the oven. Maybe someone else
here will offer some suggestions to avoid that.

I hope the Alpha Lipoic Acid does the trick. Wouldn't that be something!
Your FIL sounds like such a sweetheart.

[MagickMuffin]

9. I haven't tried your recipe yet, but the pic in my cookbook identical to the one you posted

One time I made them with the shortening since I didn't have enough butter and they still turned out pouffy. Perhaps I'm suppose to squash them down after placing them on the cookie sheet:shrug:



My FIL was the best. He died back in '03:cry: He was such a sweetheart. I :loveya: him very much. We are/were both prone to shyness. He was a very liberal man, just like his namesake. We used to rag on Bush and Cheney. His eldest son was a Limpbaugh fan. :puke:

The night he died I was at home while most of the family was with him at his eldest son's ranch. I sang a very personal song for him, letting him know it was alright to let go. I cried myself to sleep and woke up when I felt someone grab my toes. I woke up thinking it was my hubby, but no one was there. I wondered if Charlie was saying goodbye. I fell back asleep. A few hours later my hubby came home and grabbed my toes. I woke up and he told me Charlie had passed away a few hours earlier.



He could remember the first meal I cooked for him and still talk about how good those pork chops tasted. Hubby and I would often go to his parents and cook for them.

Salmon Patties coated in corn flakes, he loved those. Fresh Cream Style Corn, I made every effort to make this for him since he couldn't eat corn on the cob. He would eat it until it was all gone.

Coconut or Lemon Meringue pie, Banana Pudding, all kinds of cookies and cakes. He always would have to have seconds.

And of course all of these were made from scratch. MIL quit making anything from scratch after quick processed foods came to market:-(



I've only been taking Lipoic Acid for a few weeks so still have my fingers crossed. I guess I have a few more months to figure out if it helps.

[grasswire]

10. mine didn't crackle

...and the first batch was so soft at the end of the cooking time that I continued to bake it, but then when it cooled the cookies were dunkers -- not burned at all, but very hard.

The second batch just came out of the oven. I baked it for a shorter time. We'll see how hard these are.

Great flavor!

[TygrBright]

11. I made that mistake with gingersnaps the first time.

They seemed "too soft" when they came out of the oven and I like my gingersnaps a little on the crisp side. So I shoved them back in for a few minutes.

If they'd been just a little smaller I could have used them in vending machines after they cooled.

bemusedly,
Bright

[Tab]

12. Not a moment too soon

Didn't Archway just go out of business?

[Lucinda]

13. I love Spiced Molasses cookies. They are one of my favs. This recipe looks good!

I don't have the cardamom, black pepper or cloves in mine. Will add some next batch and see how it goes!

My dough also chills for two hours before baking... (A Gale Gand recipe) So my recipe is a bit different. I LOVE clove, so I'm looking forward to trying the additions!