Easy to make molasses cookies baked soft with crispy edges and dusted with sea salt flakes! These have holiday cookies written all over them!
I’m definitely a fan of cookies especially peanut butter stuffed cookies and of course anything white chocolate, like these really cool checker board cookies dipped in white chocolate, perfect for the holidays! And speaking of the holidays, there’s another cookie I always love to see make an appearance – molasses cookies!
Molasses cookies are the best if you’re a fan of dark treacle or molasses. It’s that deep dark and almost burnt flavor along withe winter spices like cloves and cinnamon that make these the best cookies for the holidays! This is an old recipe I’ve had on the blog for a long time, but I decided to update the pictures and adjust the baking temperature slightly higher, That’s what gave me that wrinkled look on the cookies, perfectly soft in the middle with slightly crispy.edges.
what is molasses?
Molasses is a by-product of sugar making. The sugarcane is boiled down and then crystallizes, leaving behind a thick black syrup which is the molasses. The level of flavor in molasses can depend on the three stages that sugarcane is cooked, with each stage making the molasses more intense in flavor. Molasses isn’t used as much as it was many years ago but It’s still an important ingredient in all sorts of cooking, because there’s nothing else that can provide that deep smokey and sweet flavor. It works great in baking, barbecue and Caribbean influenced recipes. Fun fact- molasses is what’s added to sugar to make brown sugar!
What you’ll need to make these delicious molasses cookies
- Flour- All purpose which is a pantry staple.
- Baking Soda-
- Spices- Ginger, cinnamon and of course cloves are used for that maximum holiday taste and smell!
- Butter- Try and use a good quality unsalted butter for this recipe as there should be enough salt from the finished sprinkling
- Sugar- Dark brown and regular white sugar are used for a rich flavor
- Eggs-
- Vanilla Extract-
- Molasses- I like to use Grandma’s Molasses which has a really great flavor, important in molasses cookies!
Recipe FAQ’s for molasses cookies
Considering an unopened bottle can last more than 10 years and an opened bottle up to two years, the chances of your molasses going bad are slim. I have never had any issues with molasses as long as it is kept properly sealed.
Yes, unsulphured molasses is just molasses that hasn’t been treated with sulfur dioxide, which is used as a preservative. Lot’s of bakers prefer to use unsulphured molasses.
Molasses is high in magnesium.
They don’t spread out too much and demand a swift tap of the pan on the counter to produce that wrinkly surface and crispy edge.
Because they are so soft and chewy, they will last 3-4 days sealed or covered.
more tasty cookie recipes
Soft and Chewy Molasses Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- ¾ cup regular sugar, divided
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup molasses
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375° F and line a large baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer on high speed, cream the butter and sugars (½ cup of white sugar) until fluffy.
- Add the egg, vanilla and molasses and beat well.
- On slow speed, add the flour mixture and mix until the dough forms.
- Place the bowl with the dough into the fridge and let rest for 30 minutes.
- Using a one tbsp cookie scoop, place 12 cookie balls on the baking pan ad sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup sugar. This may be done in two batches, 12 on each tray.
- Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and then tap the base of the baking pan on the counter as you remove them from the oven.
- Sprinkle lightly with sea salt if desired
These spicy cookies look delicious and perfect for this time of year. Must give them a try. Absolutely adore your photo of the cookies on the Shakespeare! Classy. Have a wonderful Christmas.
Such a brilliant idea and so sad I couldn’t participate as I live too far away. Maybe I should initiate a Great Cookie CRUMBS Swap for next year, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the cookies being intact after shipping! You’re really putting those molasses to work, eh…your cookies look fabulicious!
These were the best cookies, I absolutely loved them and really didn’t want to share them! Thank you so much and Merry Christmas to you and your family!
These look like the perfect holiday cookies!
Christmas is the BEST period of time for cookies and sweets in general. These cookies are no exception to this rule!
Those cookies turned out beautiful (I’ve never read the Merchant of Venice play) and I love the spoon next to the book ;) Thanks for explaining the Cookie Swap phenomenon – I’m totally signing up for next year cause this sounds like way too much fun not to participate!
I need to bake some molases cookies! Yours look fabulous! Cute measuring spoon.
I recently purchased an oven and I am going to try these for sure. They sound delicious and addition of molasses in cookies has got me intrigued!
Yummy, Gerry you must be one good baker, everything always looks so delicious!
Thanks for the referral – I will have to do this next year! These looks great – actually they look perfect!
A greeeat cookie recipe! Yum!
I looooove chewy molasses cookies! Bummed I couldn’t participate this year, but my names on the list for next year…
These look PERFECT!
Ohhh lovely. I would have adored getting these in my mailbox! Such a lovely idea, wasn’t it? A small group of us Aussie bloggers got together to participate, too.
Thanks for visiting my blog. You have a great blog here yourself! Happy to have found you. These cookies look delicious too. I love molasses cookies. Anything with cinnamon makes me think of Christmas.
What a great idea! Have you had any international shipment? It must be a real surprise to get cookies you have never tried.