Molasses Cookies

I love the holiday season.  I start listening to Christmas music on the drive home from Thanksgiving dinner and don't stop until December 25.  I bake dozens of cookies, I mull wine, and drink hot spiced cider.  I watch Love Actually at least once in the month of December every year.  I like looking for that perfect present for everyone on my list.  Count me in for Christmas parties, driving around looking at lights and Christmas pageants, I love it all.  And so, I am kicking off my holiday baking today with these molasses cookies.  I love molasses cookies, my aunt makes the best (she always used to have a jar of molasses cookies for me and a jar of snickerdoodles for my sister every time we came to visit), unfortunately I seem to have lost her recipe somewhere along the way when I moved back east from Portland, so this recipe I found on Beach Home Companion will have to do for now.  Don't get me wrong, these molasses cookies are absolutely delicious (my dad had already eaten 3 by the time the last batch was out of the oven), but they are a thinner, crisper version instead of the thick, chewy ones I grew up with.  These thin ones though, the sugar caramelizes a bit on the edges and your first bite is a carmely, slightly spicy crunch which is pretty fabulous.  The recipe can be found here.      
 

Start by mixing the dry ingredients together.

Then mix the wet together.

Now, this is tricky, combine the wet and the dry.  Then you have to chill the dough until it hardens, which happens fairly quickly, I waited about an hour.

Once the dough is properly chilled, scoop out about a tablespoon at a time, roll each blob of dough into a ball and roll it in sugar.  Make sure you space the cookies out because they will spread.  The warmer the dough gets the harder it will be to work with, it will start sticking to your hands, so work quickly and put it back into the fridge after you fill up a tray so it can firm back up before you do the next one.

The recipe says to flatten the balls slightly with the bottom of a glass, which I did 2 out of 3 times, and it made no difference, so smush them a bit if you want, it is kind of fun, but you don't need to.

Bake for about 10 minutes, they will make your house smell quite nice, and enjoy.