Jane's Molasses Gingerbread Cookies
Lindsay-Jean Hard
Photo by James Ransom
- Serves
- more cookies than can be consumed in one sitting
These cookies are a recipe that my grandparents would made together -- my grandmother making the dough, and my grandfather supplying “the muscle,” as my aunt would say (it's a really stiff dough). G.G. called these Molasses Gingerbread Cookies, but I find that name misleading -- it suggests soft, round cookies with fractured and fissured tops. These are not that. The dough is pressed out of a cookie press into several long lines on the cookie sheet, and then cut into bite-sized pieces after the cookies are baked. Once cooled, they are very thin and crispy -- to me, that makes them ginger snaps.
A couple of notes: These cookies call for a cookie press, ideally a well-made metal one -- if using a less well-made plastic press, be sure to hold the top and the base together while pressing. Of course it's possible to make these without a cookie press too, just roll them out thinly and cut into strips (or use cookie cutters.)
The original recipe called for 1 full teaspoon of ground cloves. Over the years, my family has decided that we all like the cookies better with the cloves dialed back a notch.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup shortening or oleo
- 1 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
- 4 tablespoon molasses
- 1 egg
- 2 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- Butter for greasing cookie sheets
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Directions
- Step 1
Heat oven to 375° F
- Step 2
Whisk together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves in a small bowl.
- Step 3
In another bowl, combine the shortening, sugar, molasses, and egg.
- Step 4
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix to combine.
- Step 5
Put dough into a cookie press fitted with the wavy line plate (or one that looks like a row of diamonds next to each other), and press out the dough onto greased cookie sheets in long lines.
- Step 6
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes.
- Step 7
Sprinkle with sugar immediately upon removal from oven. Cut the lines into cookies 1 1/2" to 2" in length, and let them cool on the cookie sheets until they firm up enough to move to a cooling rack.