Ginger Molasses Cookies

Do you remember Archway cookies?  They are those large cookies in the grocery store and they make soft lemon, ginger and oatmeal raisin cookies.  They are really good and truthfully I don’t know the ingredients to judge whether they are full of preservatives or not.  I would assume so because keeping cookies good past 3-4 days would require some kind of preservative.  So, let’s make our own!  Maddox thought these tasted like my gingerbread men and he’s right.  The flavors are all there: molasses, ginger and cinnamon.  These are just a different (and quicker!) method.

These are nice and soft and chewy.  Right after the cooling period, they are slightly crisp on the outside edges and chewy on the inside.   PERFECT cookie.

I highly recommend dipping them in raw sugar also known as turbinado sugar.  I ran out, but the ones dipped in the raw sugar were beautiful with the tiny crystals.  The other ones still tasted fantastic, but didn’t look as nice.

Ginger Molasses Cookies
yield about 3 dozen

1 cup (2 sticks; 8 oz.) unsalted butter
1 cup (7 oz.) sugar
1/2 cup molasses
2 and 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 and 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 and 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground ginger
2 eggs
3 and 1/2 cups AP flour (14.75 oz King Arthur Flour or 17.5 oz. other brand)

sugar for coating:  granulated sugar, sparking white sugar, sugar in the raw/turbinado sugar

1.  Now let’s do the cookie method!!!  Beat your butter and sugar in a great big bowl on medium.  It’ll get nice and fluffy – takes about 1-2 minutes.
2.  Add the molasses, baking soda, salt and spices.
3.  Add the eggs and scrape your bowl afterwards to make sure it is all mixed together.
4.  Stir in the four until it comes together.
5.  Here you can stop what you are doing and fridge the dough for a couple hours.  I recommend this since the dough is VERY sticky.  But, if you are in a hurry, carefully drop the dough into the sugar and roll around before touching it.  The dough was much easier to handle after it was cold.
6.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line your cookie sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
7.  Scoop the dough in 1.5″ balls  – I used my small cookie scoop.
8.  Roll the dough in the sugar and place on a cookie sheet.  Space the cookies 2″ apart.  This is really important here, so don’t skimp on spacing.  They spread out quite a bit.
9.  Bake 10 minutes.  It worked best when I rotated the pan in the middle of baking time.
10.  Cool on a wire rack.

Recipes from King Arthur Flour