Ginger Molasses Cookies

For years I’ve made Molasses Crinkles, a standard recipe in many  bakers’ repertoire. I used the recipe my Mom did and was completely happy with it. But it used shortening as the fat and I’ve been trying to move away from shortening in my baking, mostly replacing it with butter. That didn’t work for this recipe. In addition, something else changed – I’m not exactly sure what, but the cookies didn’t quite have the same texture or shape they’d had in the past. I don’t know if I changed my technique or what, but something was definitely different.

I’ve perused other recipes off and on and found a recipe in The Grand Central Baking Book that sounded great! So as part of my holiday baking I added this recipe to my list of projects.

Since the recipe is for the cookies they sell at their bakeries, it made a very large bakery-type cookie. I wanted something smaller and reduced the size substantially.

The resulting cookie was not what I expected but was delicious anyway. Mine did not come out as puffy as I thought they would – this could have been due to the smaller size and my not taking into account something that affected. However, I loved the cookie I got which was kind of a cross between a ginger snap and a molasses cookie. They were thin, crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside. Delicious with a cup of tea or glass of milk. I’m not a cookie dunker but if you are they’d be great for dunking!

I forgot to keep track of how many smaller cookies this made but I think it was about 6 or 7 dozen.

Ginger Molasses Cookies

 adapted from The Grand Central Baking Book

• 3 cups flour
• 1½  tsp baking soda
• ¾  tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp ground ginger
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ¾ cup room temperature butter
• 2 cups granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling
• ½  cup molasses
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1½ tsp white vinegar

Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and put aside.

Cream the butter, sugar and molasses until the mixture is lighter in color, about 3 to 5 minutes using a stand mixer at medium speed.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the vinegar.  Add the eggs one at a time to the creamed mixture, incorporating the first one completely before adding the second.

Add the dry ingredients about 1 cup at a time, incorporating fully before adding the next cup.  Make sure all ingredients are completely mixed together, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.

Chill the dough for about 1 hour.

Just before removing the dough from the refrigerator, pre-heat the oven to 350°F.  Line baking sheets with parchment, silicone liners (like silpat) or lightly grease them.

Add some granulated sugar to a shallow pan or pie plate.  You can add more later if you need to.

Roll the dough into 1″ balls.  Drop the balls into the sugar in the pan, roll until coated with sugar and then place on the baking sheets about 1″ apart.  Lightly press each ball down.

Bake for about 10 minutes.  The cookies should be golden with crackled tops.  If the tops look soft or wet you may need to bake them a little longer.

Let the cookies cool slightly on the pan before moving them to cooling racks to finish cooling.