Friday, April 07, 2006

Cinnamon and Molasses Cookies

The kids and I have made three batches of these cookies over the last couple weeks. I highly recommend them - they're just a bit crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons black molasses
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Lightly grease a baking sheet.
Heat the molasses and butter until just beginning to melt.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, spices.
Add sugar to the flour mixture and mix.

Beat the molasses mixture together with the egg yolk.
Gradually add the molasses mixture to the flour mixture to form a dough. I usually have to add a few tablespoons of water to it.

Then form little balls with the dough.

Then there's a few options. The recipe says to top the cookies after baking with a powdered sugar-based icing. Yummy, but sticky and messy... and you need to let the cookies cool down afterwards before putting the icing on them, and I like to eat them faster than that.

The kids like to flatten the cookies and top them with chocolate chips (or peanut butter chips) before baking (mostly I think they like to put the chips on).

We've also tried rolling the balls in course, raw sugar before baking.

My preference, though, is to do nothing. I think the cookies are plenty sweet by themselves (note the one and a half cups of brown sugar). Your mileage may vary.

Regardless, cook them about 11 minutes. The recipe says 12-15 minutes, but I think that's crazy -- it makes them too crunchy.

Enjoy!

3 comments:

The Grands said...

I'll try them! The recipe is interestingly different for drop cookies. Here is one I've been making alot. Today, I am going to substitue Macaddemia nuts for walnuts, last week I substitued apricot for raisins. I baked for 11 to 12 minutes and my balls were a little smaller than ping pong balls.
Granola Gems

1½ cups low fat granola cereal without raisins
1½ cups flour
½ cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons milk
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped nuts
½ cup margarine

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together cereal, flour, and sugar; cut in margarine until lumps are equal in size to granola clusters. (Try not to break up all of the granola) Dissolve baking soda in milk and beaten egg. Blend all together with nuts and raisins. (Do not be tempted to add more liquid) Roll into small balls (ping pong) or drop by tablespoon on greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 11 – 14 minutes, until golden brown.
Yield: 3 dozen

Terry Bleizeffer said...

Margarine?!?! I assume that's a typo, and you just misspelled the word b-u-t-t-e-r.

I don't think I've ever used a recipe that called for dissolving baking soda in milk... what does that do?

I'll give these a shot. Hopefully Tyler won't conclude that these cookies look suspiciously healthy. =)

The Grands said...

I just ordered a cookie scoop from the Baker's Catalogue! Now you can call me a cooking plutocrat!