Molasses Crinkles

One of the perks of teaching piano is that when Christmas rolls around, some of your students will bestow you with gifts!  Some bring cards or candles, and other times they give something they made themselves!  One of my absolute favorite, most talented students (and her mom) baked me some cookies last year.  They were delivered in a tall, pretty cellophane bag with a satin green bow and oh MY were they delicious!  Mr. D literally spent the entire week sneaking them out of my stash when he thought I wasn't looking, and so I thought, I need to MAKE a batch of these!

Molasses Crinkle Cookies

The student's mom (thank you so MUCH Mercedes) was kind enough to give me her family recipe and allowed me to also share it with all of you!  This cookie is easy to whip up, bakes into perfect sugary circles, is great for Christmas goodie trays, sharing with friends (and teachers), and has all the flavors of the holiday season baked in.  The molasses must be the secret ingredient to make these cookies have that perfect chewy factor while keeping the light crisp edges everyone loves.  This coupled with just the right amount of spices, and you've got yourself a new go-to holiday cookie!   Here are the ingredients you will need: (full printable recipe at the end of the post)


Molasses Crinkles

3/4 cup soft shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg 
1/4 cup molasses
2-1/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger


Put the shortening and brown sugar into your mixing bowl and cream together

I doubled this recipe, these will go fast, I highly recommend making bigger batches

Add in one egg

then add in the molasses

Make sure everything is creamed together nicely

Next it says to sift the dry ingredients together, however I just added them one by one (I'm such a rebel).  Add the 2 1/4 cup of flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp of cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp of ginger, and1/4 tsp of salt.

Spices... they are the spice of life. (deep thoughts)

Make sure everything is mixed thoroughly

Chill the dough

Once the dough is chilled to firm, roll into walnut sized balls and roll in granulated sugar

Place on a silpat mat covered baking sheet

Silpats rock!  If you don't have any it's not to late to ask Santa to bring you some for Christmas

Bake at 375º for 10-12 minutes until soft set

By the time you pull the first pan out of the oven, your whole house will smell like holiday heaven!  The granulated sugar you rolled the chilled dough in bakes up into a shiny, shimmery topping.  So pretty!  I love the "crinkled" look the tops get, and I also love that each cookie is the same size and perfect round shape.

This makes them easy to stack high into a towering treat you can give away

 

Or, you know... eat warm off the tray with a cold tall glass of milk.  

No judging people, once you taste these cookies you will be hooked!  

This, by the way is a great way to use up extra molasses you might have around after some of your other holiday baking.  Come to think of it, the last day of school is only two days away.  While I had every intention of making all of my girls' teachers homemade ice cream like we did last year, I think I have run out of time.  I'll probably be baking a couple batches of these tonight and wrapping them up pretty for school on Friday. 

Go ahead and try these cookies and let me know what you think!  Full printable recipe found here.  Enjoy.