Molasses Crinkle Cookies

This recipe has been staring at me ever since we bought the molasses.

 

Molasses Crinkle Cookies ¾ c softened butter 1 c light brown sugar 1 egg 2 tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt ½ tsp cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ginger ¼ c molasses 2¼ c flour Mix sugar, butter, baking soda, salt, and spices. Beat well. Add eggs, one at a time, beat well after each. Thoroughly mix in the molasses, then work in the flour. (If using an electric mixer, you can just put everything except the flour into the bowl all at once, beat until mixed, and then add the flour.) Coat a large serving platter or two dinner plates with cooking spray. Shape into 1-inch balls, then set them on the plate. After they're all shaped and on the plate, sprinkle them with sugar. Refrigerate until thoroughly cold. When ready to bake, heat oven to 375°. Grease a baking sheet. Set each cookie about 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Sprinkle 2-3 drops of water from your fingertips onto each one. Bake 10-12 minutes. As with anything that uses a lot of molasses, watch carefully and remove them from the oven if they start to blacken around the edges- molasses is prone to scorching. Source: Grandma's Molasses jar

Whenever I get anything out of the pantry, the recipe for Molasses Crinkle Cookies sits on the shelf, quietly whispering to me from the back of the molasses jar. You might think I should turn the jar so the recipe faces the other way, but 1) I am not so good a housekeeper that I always make all the labels in the pantry face the correct direction, and 2) I would know the recipe lurks on the back of the jar anyway.

As we got everything into the bowl, I had my doubts about the recipe. First, the directions call for "softened shortening." I know no one who keeps their shortening cold enough to necessitate softening. Perhaps the recipe writers couldn't decide between shortening and butter. Or maybe they wrote this recipe in the days when "shortening" meant "any solid fat" and never updated the words as English changed over the decades.

Second, we are directed to just dump everything into the bowl all at once.

I decided that since food manufacturers (theoretically) test the heck out of recipes before allowing them onto the back of their products, I would set aside my misgivings that the (softened) butter would resist mixing if I followed the directions. Surely the people at B&G Foods, makers of Grandma's Molasses, would have made sure you can follow the recipe as written before printing it onto the back of the jar. As I suspected, we ended up with butter lumps in sludge.

You might think I shouldn't bother using a spoon when a stand mixer is at hand, but the Mixmaster is having some problems lately.

We found out why it landed in an antique store with a low price handwritten on the tag. A few decades of flour and other cooking detritus have clogged the motor up until it just couldn't cope. We will have to purge the Mixmaster's innards of countless cookies and cakes before it can mix again. Fortunately, we have a little handheld backup!

I didn't want to use the handmixer for cookie dough lest it burn itself out. But I figured the mixer would be fine is we only used it to force the lumps of softened shortening to mix in, and put it away before we got to the flour. 

I fault the recipe writers for failing to tell us we needed an electric mixer for this recipe. One finds vague instructions often enough in community cookbooks, but this recipe was (theoretically) written by professionals. Did they test this recipe at all? After I got the flour into the bowl, everything looked hopelessly crumbly. I gave up on the spoon and got in there with my hands like Fanny Cradock making a fruitcake. After some forceful squeezing, everything came together into a surprisingly sticky dough.

The directions tell us to refrigerate and then shape the dough, but I prefer to do those steps in reverse order. The dough may be sticky and annoying to work with before it gets cold, but it's hard and crumbly after. You just have to pick which one you mind less. I should also note that I made these a lot bigger than the recipe says I should. I think getting the expected yield out of a cookie recipe often means the cookies are too small.

I was curious what all this business of sprinkling water over the cookies before baking was supposed to accomplish. The recipe says the water creates "a crackled surface." So naturally, I sprinkled some of the cookies and baked the remaining ones without getting them wet. It turns out that the water makes the sugar grains on the outside of the cookies meld into a sort of glaze. I may start doing this every time I make cookies get rolled in sugar.

No water-sprinkles on the left, water-sprinkled on the right.

Like anything with lots of molasses in it, these cookies were prone to scorching around the edges. If you overbake most cookies, they get a little extra-toasty on the edges and a bit crunchier than usual. But if you overbake something with molasses, it quickly gets burnt.

These came out really soft, and the crisp glaze on the outside from getting water on them was a really nice touch. As someone else said, "These are kind of like gingerbread." But as delightful as these are, they weren't quite as good as Aunt Babette's molasses cookies. The cookies from the back of the molasses jar were a bit blander. Even those in the house who've never heard of Aunt Babette said "That other recipe was better."